Uncharted 2: The Ancient Pharaoh
by The Alpha Gray Wolf
Summary: Cassie and Derek are now in for a globe-trotting experience. It is said in Egypt lies the lost tomb of an ancient ruler and whoever finds it is promised power. Cassie and Derek are intrigued, and so is a violent organization who have proved to be Cassie and Derek's most ruthless foes.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I own only the stuff that I made up. All other stuff that I did not make up belongs to the rightful owners.**

* * *

 **Cassie Drake-Amateur archaeologist and Daughter of Nathan Drake**

 **Derek Lowell-Cassie's best friend and sidekick**

 **Omaria Al-Bashir-An Egyptologist**

 **Kamille Al-Bashir-The cousin of Omaria**

 **Niko Lowell-The cousin of Derek.**

 **Overlord-An organization who is hellbent on world domination and the most dangerous enemies ever encountered in the series.**

 **Farid Zaman-An Overlord lieutenant with a fierce determination to achieve destiny.**

 **Hamed Najam-An Overlord scientist and non-commissioned officer with excellent historical knowledge.**

* * *

 **Extended Summary**

 **One year after their adventure in Bosnia, Cassie and Derek are now in for a globe-trotting experience. It is said in Egypt lies the lost tomb of an ancient ruler and whoever finds it is promised power. Cassie and Derek are intrigued, and so is a violent organization who have proved to be Cassie and Derek's most ruthless foes. Can Cassie and Derek beat the most dangerous enemies the Drakes have ever faced to the lost tomb of an ancient ruler?**

* * *

 _All strange and terrible events are welcome, but comforts we despise._

 _Cleopatra_

April 2036

Cairo, Egypt

Dressed in a pair of khaki pants with leather brown boots and a white henny, Cassie walked with her friend as she walked up the steps and onto the balcony overlooking a beautiful view of the great city of Cairo.

"Cassie Drake, welcome back to my homeland Egypt," Omaria Al-Bashir said gratefully with a lot of energy in her voice.

Cassie held up a glass of water in her hand as she patted her dark haired friend on the back proudly. "You know me Omaira, I am always game to come to your beautiful country," the young blonde adventurer said. "I mean, we have a couple days off from college and why not spend it with my Egyptologist friend that I have not seen in two years?"

Cassie Drake turned around to see her best friend Derek Lowell walk up the stairs and onto the balcony with Omaria's cousin named Kamille. "Actually, we came here to do some digging in the Great Pyramid of Giza," Derek says, spilling the beans on why they were actually here. It's not that they didn't want to see Omaria, it was that they did not come for her specifically. A partial lie because back in college, Cassie and Derek were debating on what countries to go archaeology-ing and they picked Egypt because their friend was there and she happened to be an Egyptologist. So yeah, they did come to Egypt to see her kinda.

Omaria was not complaining because she knew them and she shouldn't have expected anything less.

"Okay, what Derek said about us coming to excavate at the pyramid was technically true, but we chose this place because we haven't been here in awhile," Cassie explains, hoping that her friend would understand what she did.

Omaria leans back and smiles as she spreads her arms open like a hawk. "Hey, I understand. Remember when I came to the United States and we found that tomb in Texas? Well, I didn't come to the United States for you, I came so I can do some digging."

"Trying to be a graverobber again Omaria? We haven't dealt with graverobbers in a long time." Cassie reassures, but she hasn't forgotten what happened to her in Bosnia nine months ago. Every time she thought of that incident, she felt as if her heart drinks two sizes every two Christmases. Nine months ago is water under the bridge or water in the dam. "Besides, those jewels and idols we found proved that the Aztecs did settle in the Southern United States for a short period of time. Plus, I'm eager to see what is in the Great Pyramid of Giza; if there is anything that the Drakes can't find, it's nothing. There is nothing the Drakes can't find." She then heard the Australian accent come to her that pops up from time to time. It was something she acquired from spending long periods with her aunt Chloe when she was a kid. She was just glad that she was the only one who heard it.

"Don't get cocky Drake," Omaria says as she slaps her against the American's stomach playfully. "Let's not forget what kind of trouble we attracted when we found those Aztec artifacts."

Cassie walked away from the dark haired Egyptian and went to go sit down in a chair overlooking the view of Cairo. Derek sat in a chair beside her and took a sip of his water to relieve himself of the face melting heat he felt. Omaria sat in a chair across from the two and pulled out a pack of Pall Malls. The green pack, the menthol Pall Malls. She took a single one, tapped the butt against the back of her hand before she puts it in her mouth and motions for Kamille to light it for her.

Cassie and Derek were slightly uncomfortable with Omaria blowing smoke in their face while they were trying to drink some water and gaze at the scenery of her beautiful homeland. Cassie just took a long sip of water, but the smoke caught her nose. _Smoking, where have I seen this before?_

 _At least it's not cigars, the reeking odor,_ Derek thought as he turned his head to his far right, his head almost looked like it was going to twist all the way around like an owl.

"So anyways, since you guys are going to be staying here for a while…" Omaria took the cigarette from her mouth and gave a relief puff. "You are more than welcome to sleep in the guest room. There are about two beds in there and I clean them twice a month at least." She reinserts the cigarette, tasting the minty flavor and smiling. She picks up on the smoking bothering the two Americans because one of them was chugging their water like a fish and the other was trying to turn his head all the way around like on _The Exorcist._

She took the cigarette between her index and middle finger and removes it from her mouth. She puffs out an air of smoke and asks them if they were uncomfortable with her smoking in front of them.

Cassie finally stopped chugging her water to answer her as honestly as possible. "Yes, those Pall Malls, especially the green pack is supposed to have a minty smell-I have never smoked before-and I smell nothing minty in the smoke." She had memories of smelling that awful cigar from her grandfather.

Omaria nodded as if she understood them, but she didn't. These were her Pall Malls that she smoked at least twice a week and she paid a lot of good money for them. She was not going to let her American friends ruin her moment. "Well, then you might as well get used to that smell because I'm going to be smoking until this little guy is nothing but a butt."

Cassie knew how stubborn her friend was and she shouldn't have expected anything less. She began wondering why she even put up a fight in the first place. But Omaria did have a point; she paid money for something so she might as well get her money's worth. "Okay then," she says, raising her hand without the glass in it. "I understand and I am sorry if I offended you. I just am not used to that cigarette smell." She wanted to say more, but the look on Omaria's face looked reminded Cassie of a wolf about to close in on its prey and kill it instantly.

"So…" Derek says awkwardly as he stares at a tiny international plane in the distance as it touches down at the international airport. "When is the earliest that we can actually explore the Giza pyramid?" He loses interest in watching the plane and figuring that Omaria didn't have her smoke in her mouth, turned to face her and was satisfied that she wasn't smoking. It was in between her fingers and the smoke was blowing in the opposite direction.

"Two days from now," Omaria answers. "The lead excavator at the site-Farid-says that it is closed to the public and anyone entering and exiting must have proper authorization. Right now, they are bringing in a crane from Cairo to Giza and it should be a two-day job and they prohibit people from entering prematurely; graverobbers is what they fear."

Cassie put her glass of water at her feet and laced her hands together to lean forward. "Your people sound extremely paranoid. But I guess nowadays you can't be too careful, I of all people should know. My Dad of all people should know this because of all his 'occupational hazardous' adventures he went on." Now Cassie remembered how her father went to Egypt with Sully and Sully's goddaughter Jadranka "Jada" Hzujak to look for a labyrinth. She hasn't seen Jada in a long time and she actually missed her. Since she was Sully's goddaughter and Nate was like Sully's son, that would make them brother and sister so Jada would be Cassie's 'aunt'.

Cassie's seals her eyes shut and lets her head fall forward while she smiles to herself. _I come from a completely unconventional family._ "Okay then," she says as she snaps her head up to look at Omaria. "Today is Wednesday so we should be going to that Giza pyramid on Friday. From me and Derek's experience, we should bring weapons with us and climbing equipment."

"I agree," Derek agrees. "After what happened to me nine months ago; breaking my leg and spending six weeks in a leg cast, don't want history to repeat itself. No fricking way."

"I tried talking to Farid and he seemed adamant on wanting to keep weapons as far away from the excavation site as possible. Apparently, the workers are not used to guns and he wants them to respect him and not fear him. Plus, people walking in with guns would be totally suspicious-like and we would most likely be accused of suspected grave robbing or in extreme cases, terrorism. So bringing guns is not a good idea." She takes another puff as Cassie turns to Derek.

"We are not grave robbing or committing any acts of terrorism, but awrigh. What do you think? You think we can manage without any guns?"

Derek shrugged. "So far, all we've ever needed was a grappling hook and a climbing piton. I'm not complaining because we are alive and we survive every breathtaking situation an adventure throws at us so of course, we need guns. We're gonna have to smuggle them in."

"Do they do strip searches? If they do, I know one place that we can hide them on Derek."

"Up yours too Cassie," Derek retorts.

Cassie chuckled, amused at what he said. "No, up _your_ idiot. You're an asshole, which means we can shove a whole shoe up your ass and you will still have enough room for a rocket launcher."

"Of course, we can shove them up your-"

"Guys!" Omaria cuts off before any more could be said. "We can of course just go without guns. Plus, getting caught with a gun here without a permit and you guys have no permit, means life imprisonment for terrorism and that also means that no parole is possible because here in Egypt, a life sentence is a death sentence because no parole and getting out is life imprisonment here."

Now Cassie and Derek were both taken aback by this and they both quickly decided not to go with guns while they are here. Omaria was native to this country and Cassie and Derek weren't. They were like blind people who were expected to know where the light switch was in a house that wasn't theirs.

Cassie raised her hands up, showing both of her palms to Omaria before clenching her jaw. "Okay then. So I guess we can manage without some guns. Derek, you intelligere?"

Derek spat back at her in Latin.

Now it was like a rap battle in a foreign language.

 _I don't have time for this,_ Omaria thinks as she finishes her smoke and throws the butt off the balcony. She and Kamille let Cassie and Derek hash it out while they went to go get some leftover cake in the fridge. _I wonder if Cassie and Derek will like strawberry shortcake?_ She took one last look at them who were still bickering in Latin. _You two deserve each other._

* * *

 _I will not be updating for a while. Sorry, but stay tuned._

 **If you want to see an Uncharted adaption of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," vote on my profile page.**


	2. 584901

"Hey Farid," Hamed calls out to a man sitting against the grille of a jeep with a cigar in his mouth. "Did you hear back from Echo-Delta?"

Farid Zaman was a tall man with a gray beard that reached from ear to ear with dark hair and pale skin, despite living in his hometown Cairo. "I heard back from ED, they say that Cassie and Derek are sleeping in someone's house. Al-Bashir by the name of it. Our plan seems to be working out perfectly, if this turns out exactly how we planned, then our leader will give us a promotion." Farid took the cigar from his mouth and took out his satellite phone. The satellite phone had an insignia on the very bottom of the earth with the oceans black and the land masses dark red. It even had Overlord's motto on it: _PHAEDRA et rectores orbis terrarum (Overlord will rule the world)._

"Baseplate, this is Soldier 584901 here, is our precious cargo at the pyramid? It is rather important that we know if they left or not," he spoke in Latin instead of English. Baseplate was a communications officer like Overlord from the _Modern_ _Warfare_ series. However, he was not high ranking and more just a twenty-five year old technician who barely got any action. They lacked any secure network, but they could easily keep their messages hidden as long as they kept talking in different languages or a language no one has spoken in a thousand years and Farid Zaman was speaking thirteen century Latin.

Hamed walked forward to listen on the satellite phone. Baseplate spoke back in a sixteenth century Spanish. Zaman understood that Baseplate had told him that everything was still in place. Nobody had walked out of line and they were still on schedule.

Zaman bid farewell to Baseplate before he hung up. As soon he put the satellite phone away, several people surrounded him like a pack of wolves and watched eagerly as he finished his cigar and buried it into the ground underneath his feet. Most of the soldiers-not thugs-around him wore the same thing that he was wearing; black jeans with black jackets that have been designed to change temperature to adapt to any environments. One of the several soldiers stood out though.

A girl with hair that had been dyed apricot orange held a child in her hands. A four...month old child with brownish hair growing in; the color of his mother's natural hair color.

Zaman turned from soldier personality, to cheerful personality. "Hey there Lachina, how is little Tadeas doing?"

The orange haired Lachina was handed a baby bottle by a soldier name Salaam and she used it to feed Tadeas with it. "He is doing good. He'll be turning five months on the twenty-second. Him and his twin sister."

Zaman smiled at her and looked to see a soldier named Nikita hold a infant girl in his hands. "Did you hear that Baako, you'll be turning five months in two weeks and one day. Isn't that exciting?"

"Lachina, are you sure you don't want to stay here and look out for the little juniors here?" Zaman asked. "Cause you know the threat levels for typical Overlord missions. They are level ten, the equivalent of nuclear warfare. I mean, we are comfortable with replacing you."

Lachina shook her head. "I did some digging and Overlord had an initial population of 484,020,504 members and now twelve years, we have only 319,542,009 people left."

Overlord lost so many people because of all the dangerous missions they went on in their lives. They blew up temples to look for mythical objects, scoured the entire world to look for lost cities, participated as an independent faction in a current civil war in Italy where they just slaughtered people without discrimination. Their first appearance however was in 2025 in Belgium, where they bombed a government house in a kamikaze attempt to not only weaken the country, but steal one billion dollars worth in diamonds. They could have stolen the diamonds quietly, but they made sure their suicide bombings were done to show the entire world that they are fully devoted to their cause and will die for their cause. They would later prove this again when the ones who were arrested committed suicide in quick (and sometimes painful) ways. This happened in a span of twelve years and they already lost 164,478,495 soldiers to be exact, all for their cause for world domination.

"Isn't it weird how we have to remember everything?" Zaman asked. "The point is we have three thousand agents in Egypt and you should be at home taking care of your two babies. They are the future for Overlord after all and I am pretty sure you want them to turn out awesome members like their mommy and daddy." When he saw the grim look on her face, it was then when he realized that he shouldn't have mentioned the daddy. "Okay, shouldn't have mentioned the daddy. But I guess there is no stopping you from going on missions with us."

"Just a few more and then I'll take some time off. When I was recruited, I told that four to five missions were required before I could take time off."

"Alright then, Hamed." He turns to the short man. "Call in the Whisperers, tell them to be ready to initiate Operation: Cleopatra at 0900 hours tomorrow." He watched as Hamed ran off to call in an Overlord group named after a certain group from _The Walking Dead_ comics. He faced the others and began going over what the plan was. "Remember, if we find the Tomb, then our plans will fall right into place one way or another. Cassie and Derek will go into the pyramid, find what we need and then we shall rob them of their information and leave them to rot in the desert. I will admit that it won't be a foolproof plan, but I know it will be a good plan."

"Sir, you said 'If we find the Tomb.' 'IF'," a soldier named Harkov pointed out. "Are you not confidant in the mission? Are you not confidant in general?"

"Shut your trap, I am just being realistic. Does everyone have a capsule in their mouth? Hidden so that food can be chewed without the fear of chewing on the capsule? Lachina, I want you to take yours out because you are parenting two children. Non-negotiable."

"Yes sir." Lachina made sure that her son was secure in her hands before she used her gloved hand to insert one finger in her mouth to remove a small and transparent capsule. "I know; I destroy it." Which is what she did with her boot.

"Good, because our leader has made it pretty clear that any parents within Overlord are required to remove their capsules should they go on missions." Zaman looks at his watch and sets a timer. "In just two days, Cassie and Derek are going to be doing all of Overlord's dirty work for Operation: Cleopatra. We just have to set up tomorrow."

Harkov and the other soldiers gave battle cries out of sheer excitement.

* * *

Cassie was having a bad day because she was trying to take a shower and Derek was in there and he was using up all the hot water out of spite for her calling him and she quotes, "a dodo bird with no dick and brains shoved far up its ass".

"Derek man, don't use up all the hot water, Cassie Drake don't do cold or warm water. Cassie Drake don't DO cold or warm water! Not after being forced to shower next to a mercenary under a cold waterfall."

"Shouldn't have called me that then," Derek shouted through the door, his voice somewhat muffled by the sounds of water. "I will leave about five minutes of hot water in here if you don't apologize."

"Apologize, are you serious?"

"I'm as serious as rain water!"

"Not the correct term. The term is 'right as rain' and no way am I apologizing because I got nothing to apologize for!"

"Then I will leave you with only five minutes of hot water in here."

Omaria came walking into the hall, brought by the bickering between the Americans. "What's the genesis?" She took note on how Cassie had a fist on the door with her other hand holding a white towel. Cassie did not bother to make any eye contact with her Egyptian friend as she pounded on the door. "The genesis is that I called Derek a dodo and now he is upset. Apparently me calling him a specific dodo insult somehow brought back memories of what his alcoholic-yet non-abusive uncle used to say to him."

"And did you say sorry?"

For the first time since Omaria was in the hallway, Cassie finally acknowledged her. "I got nothing to apologize for. We always insult each other and he should learn to be a man about it."

The bathroom door opened with a wide grin on Derek's face. Cassie took her hand back that had been pounding on the bathroom door and asked if he left any hot water for her. "I wasn't in the shower Cassie," he explained as he whipped out his phone. "I was only making you think that I was in the shower. I was actually making shower noises with this special effects app on my phone. You must feel pretty stupid Cassie. Anyways, the hot shower is all yours; it has not been turned on at all. I promise." He acted as if he dropped the mic and walked off, leaving a blushing humiliated Cassie to be laughed at by Omaria.

Cassie's face was as red as blood as she watched Derek walk into the guest room to turn in for the night. Omaria laughed like Drax from _Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2_ and did not stop until Cassie locked herself in the bathroom and started stripping. She took a nice and long hot shower, unworried that she might use it all up. She used her time naked under a shower to review what kind of humiliation she brought to herself. If she had just apologized to Derek for calling him a dodo, then maybe her embarrassing moment wouldn't have happened. But then again, even if she didn't, Derek would find some kind of excuse to spend a long time under a shower. So it was going to happen one way or another; it was inevitable.

Cassie's face was not the only thing turning red. Her back was being physically burned from the hot water as if it were a flamethrower. Her shoulders were a deep red color and she already felt herself getting dehydrated and sweaty; she knew for certain that the water on her head was not from the spray. _Taking a fricking hot shower in fricking hot country, maybe I should've taken a warm shower._

She has decided that she has had enough and steps out the shower after turning it off and dresses into her pajamas for the night. She folds her clothes and sets them next to her bed as she sleeps in the second bed of the guest room. Derek was already fast asleep and snoring like a pig. Cassie has slept with Derek, but not in a sexual way. It was actually back in Iceland when they had to get naked and actually sleep next to each other to share body heat, but no sex went on. Although she did feel 'it' against her leg as she slept. She didn't mind; she took it as a compliment that she was sexy. Plus, if it meant Derek passing out from excitement, then she liked being completely nude in front of him, only if it meant him passing out. That was all she asked for in return.

"Hello Cassie," Derek said without turning around. "Don't forget to turn off the light."

"Yeah, like I like sleeping with the lights on." She went to the light switch and took care of the lights.

* * *

Nighttime had passed and Zaman had a walkie-talkie in his hand and he was doing a radio check in on all agents currently residing in Cairo. He called for one agent specific. Soldier 584914. "Pick up, this call is important, we need to know of Cassie and Derek's current status," he said several times. "It is important that you pick up and answer."

"They're both asleep," a voice said. Omaria's voice.

"Good job on keeping tabs on them Omaria, you sure earned your place in Overlord. All we have to do is tattoo your ID number on your arm and then you are a full blood member of Overlord."

"Anything to earn the badge," Omaria said with determination. "Anything...to...earn...the badge."

* * *

Omaria Al-Bashir

Born: March 2013, Cairo, Egypt,

Hair: Dark  
Eye: Brown

Height: Five-seven

Weight: One-forty

Nationality: Egyptian

Relatives: Kamille Al-Bashir (Cousin)

Biography: Omaria is a close friend to Cassie and Derek. Whenever they go on adventures in the Middle East, Omaria would be their sidekick. She met Cassie before she met Derek. The first time Cassie and Omaria met is when Nathan Drake took Cassie to a trip to Egypt where she met a peasant teenager named Omaria who shared a passion for archaeology, Egyptology and especially the ancient pharaohs and dreamt of exploring all over the Middle East. She is basically a smoker version of Cassie and once she makes a choice, there is no going back.


	3. A Language I Don't Speak

Cassie Drake, Derek Lowell and Omaria Al-Bashir walked through the market under a blue sky whilst in extreme humidity. Cassie was wearing no jacket and only her tank top, which now showed off her muscular arms. She regretted wearing long pants because they were like an extra appendage that she did not need. But luck was with her when she brought water upon Omaria's request. As she sipped from the bottle, Derek and Omaria bought a few Egyptian cusinces called Kofta. Cassie tried them and was excited to discover that Kofta tasted delicious. _One of the things I need to make when I get back home to Hawaii._

"Hey Omaria," Cassie called out with her mouth stuffed with Kofta. She yanked Omaria's attention, but she waited until she swallowed the food in her mouth before she answered. "Where's Kamille?"

"She's at work. She's got a job as a photographer for Egyptian Cruises."

Cassie understood what the Egyptian Cruises was; a magazine company that promotes Egyptology. If Kamille was a photographer for them, then she knew why Omaria had enough money to pay for her big house with an excellent view of Cairo. "You think Kamille could get a few photos of me? You know, just for publicity? The headline could be _Cassie Drake, the next adventurer, Lara Croft and Indiana Jones._ " Cassie dreamt of meeting Lara Croft, but it would be like running and then jumping off the top of the Empire State building and surviving.

"I don't know about that Cassie," Omaria admits with her lips parted from her teeth. "You know how many people ask _her_ to actually be on the cover of one of the magazines?"

Cassie chuckled at the remark she came up with in her head. "Well, I doubt any of them are actual treasure hunters. Like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft."

Derek groaned upon tasting the bad Kofta. "This meatball or whatever it is is rotten badly."

"Well, you got a bad batch," Omaria explained before removing the Kofta from his hands and tossing it into the trash. "What a poor waste."

"I have to eat my Snickers bar just to get that taste out of my mouth. You got anything that has strawberry taste in it?"

Omaria held her hands up as she shrugged. "I've never had strawberry before. That shortcake I baked for you guys, didn't eat it."

Derek looked at her with his eyebrows arched before he turned to Cassie. "You hear this Cassie, she has never had strawberry before. Before this day is over," he turns back to Omaria. "We need to get you some strawberry. That flavor rules. If I ever become Venom, then I will be craving for strawberry. Like how Eddie craves chocolate and now Venom loves chocolate."

"I saw that Venom movie that came out eighteen years ago in 2018. I gotta say, the movie was, no, _is_ awesome," Cassie commented. Then she noticed that Omaria was walking off with her phone in her hand. "Where are you going?"

"I have to make a phone call, is that alright with you?" she snapped. "Is there something wrong with that or do I need your permission to make a phone call?"

 _Omaria seems a little more aggressive than usual,_ Cassie thought as she studied Omaria.

* * *

"I'm getting a phone call," Zaman said to Hamed and Lachina with hair dyed blue. "It's from you-know-who."

"You can say Omaria," Hamed stated the obvious as he looked around the U shaped rooftop that they stood upon. "There's no one else on this roof besides us."

"Okay then, Omaria." Zaman answered the phone and addressed Omaria by her service number. "How are Cassie and Derek doing," he asked in Latin. "Are they still in your sights?"

"Affirmative," Omaria responds in Egyptian. "They are doing as well as can be expected. I do however, regret that I have to do this. After all, what would they think of me as soon as I remove my mask to them?"

"584914, let me tell you something, when you work with Overlord, then you are spending your life, body and soul for the cause. You must be prepared to kill your friends, that cousin of yours, and to kill yourself if you have to. You set this corse Omaria, so you have to pay the price. After all, you were the one who came to us on your knees and begged for a position in Overlord. I will never understand whatever your motivation, but we gave you a fair warning of what kind of shit we will be dealing with. You know what kind of shit we will be dealing with?"

"Yes."

"Good, now you must tell us exactly what Cassie and Derek are doing. You are our eyes, you are our ears and you are invaluable to us." The way how he uses charisma to get people to do what he wants is what _he_ loved about _himself_. But in the eyes of others, he is a narcissist who doctors his attitude.

"Well, right now the two are arguing about who made a better Venom and Cassie is saying Tom Hardy while Derek is saying Topher Grace. Oh wait, I got that wrong, they are both just saying what part of that Venom movie they liked. Never seen it, but I think I will when our mission is done and over with."

Zaman smiled in amusement. "I've seen that movie, I really love that movie. Even to this day, it is still awesome. I especially like the part when-"

"Don't say anything about the movie," she interrupts quickly. "I want to watch it so don't spoil anything."

"Why are we talking about movies? Get back to work!" He hung up the phone and turned to see Hamed and Lachina staring at him with narrow eyes and wide smiles. Like clowns, something that Zaman actually feared. "What the hell are you guys looking at? You guys look like the Joker and Harley Quinn."

"Hey captain," a soldier with sandy blond hair called out as he walked beside Hamed. "You think it's possible for us to get down from this roof and actually go do some real scoping of our targets? These heights are really getting to me."

"No Khaled, we can't because we can't allow Overlord to be spotted. We have to keep a close track on Cassie and Derek, and then we have to find the Tomb if we want to achieve world domination."

Khaled was starting to sweat and Zaman noted how he was sweating nervously and not from the humidity. "What's wrong corporal?"

"Nothing sir, but are you sure that world domination is really the best way to go?"

"I follow orders given to us by our Leader. I don't care either way, as long as I survive. Overlord's going to win this battle either way, so that's why I joined up. But to be honest, Al-Bashir, she joined up for whatever reason I don't know. Also, she is highly expandable either way. We're going to bury her with Cassie and Derek."

"Leader's orders?"

"My orders; you really think I'll let a woman be part of our team? _My_ team? A being whose only job is to do nothing but scream like a bitch. Lachina is an exception because she is a mother."

"Sexist," Lachina crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Zaman. Even Hamed was actually surprised that Zaman was a sexist. "I hate sexist people," she said before she punched Zaman in the jaw.

* * *

Cassie watched curiously as Omaria made a phone call to someone and she was strangely speaking another language. But it was a language she couldn't understand. Sadly, she could only identify Egyptian when it was spoken and read it, but when a person speaks Egyptian, she would be unable to understand because like Albanian, she could speak nor understand it. Omaria had the advantage.

She definitely heard her name in one of Omaria's sentences. "It seems that Omaria is talking to someone about us...I wonder who." After she spoke her mind, she edged closer to her Egyptian friend to hear her say something about the Venom movie. Cassie also heard a mention of something called Overlord. "Sketchy at the very most," she says to herself.

"You look like a deer in headlights," Derek said, shoving his shoulder into her shoulder. "What? Did you spot any villains or something?"

Cassie ignored him and continued to study Omaria like a book. Derek tried to yank her attention a few more times before Cassie slapped him on the shoulder. She was already irritated as she was.

Omaria hung up and approached the two casually. "What's up homos?"

Derek just had the urge to correct her. "The correct term is homies."

"So, who's your boyfriend on the phone?" Cassie put a hand on her hip as she observed Omaria for anything odd-like. "I heard you say something about us in a different language. You are so lucky that I can't speak or understand Egyptian. I can read it though."

"It was my boss." Omaria showed no signs anything odd-like. Derek was observant, but he detected no signs of deception. Cassie knew Omaria much longer and her detecting deception within her friend was like playing hide and seek in the dark with night vision goggles.

"Your boss of what job?" Cassie asked.

"The boss at the excavation site, Farid, he called me to tell me we were all set."

"Any explanation as to why you were speaking Egyptian to your 'boss'? For all I know, he could own a whorehouse. Does your boss want to sell me as a whore?"

"Nope, we speak different languages as a way to keep hackers from understanding what we are saying. You know how many grave robbers the Great Pyramid of Giza has? It is unbearable. We have a group of grave robbers last week and Farid almost had a stroke from fear and stress combined."

"If there are grave robbers, why not keep firearms for self-defense?"

"Not how it works here in Egypt. I'll be sure to bring something to the pyramid that we can use to defend ourselves with."

Cassie kept on studying her, making sure that everything she said was somewhat normal. She had no intention of believing anything she said; especially since she said Overlord.

"So Derek, you were going to take me out for strawberries?" she said to Derek.

Derek jumped a little a put a hand on her shoulder. "Where's the nearest Starbucks and then we can get you a strawberry smoothie? Do they have a Starbucks around here?" Omaria nodded. "Good, take me there and then we shall give you a taste of strawberry. It is something to die for. Figuratively speaking of course, since me and Cassie actually know something to die for."

 _I'm sure you do,_ Omaria thinks. "I'll take your word for it."

Cassie watched as the two departed to a nearby Starbucks and she took the time to review what kind of group is Overlord. She has heard that name before, but what does that have to do with grave robbing? She vaguely remembers several years ago a report about an independent faction fighting in the current Italian civil war. They slaughtered people indiscriminately, but if those people were indeed Overlord, then she would doubt they would be grave robbers. An organization like that has too much money to be robbing. _All I need right now...is another Tyr Henriksen_ ( **A character from** _ **The**_ _ **Fourth**_ _ **Labyrinth**_ ) _._ She took out her phone and did a quick search on Overlord.

Nothing came up, they were completely unknown to the media and probably most governments. She searched up the name of the independent faction that fought in the Italian civil war and nothing came up. Not even a fingerprint. Then she searched up notorious grave robber groups in Egypt, and all of them came up with a completely different name and they were small in numbers and none of the groups are foreign to the country of Egypt.

 _Overlord is mysterious indeed._ She goes to her history and clears it all. "Don't want Trinity to be tracking me." She figured if Trinity had the money to keep themselves hidden, then they had technology to track people who tried to search them up. As a precaution, she quickly removes her memory card and pockets it away. "One thing: how does Omaria know about Overlord?"

* * *

 **Kamille Al-Bashir**

 **Born: 2016 (20)**

 **Hair: Dark brown**

 **Eye: Brown**

 **Height: Five-seven**

 **Weight: One-forty**

 **Nationality: Egyptian**

 **Relatives: Omaria Al-Bashir (Cousin)**

 **Biography: Kamille Al-Bashir was born and raised in Cairo just like her cousin was. However, instead of developing a taste for archaeology, she grew a love for photography at the age of seven and began taking all kinds of pictures. She did not go to any fancy school, but she earned a good job becoming a photojournalist working for the Egyptian Cruises and earned a lot of money, along with a lot of verbal abuse from her boss. But her job is what paid for her and Omaria's house and allowed them to buy a few days to explore inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.**

* * *

 **I can't wait to see that Venom movie. Anybody else?**


	4. The Stalker and the Observer

In the corner of Cassie's hazel-green eye, she saw someone staring at her with intensity. This man was just sitting in a chair with an Egyptian Cruise magazine in his hands, pretending to read. Cassie could not take her eyes off of him. No matter how hard he looked at the magazine in his hands, he could not fool Cassie. The first sweat that broke from him from nervousness instead of humidity is what gave Cassie the tell-tale sign that he was stalking her.

"Bastard is stalking me. Who are you?" She lunged at the man in the chair. They both tumble to the ground with the stalker on top of Cassie. He punches her brutally across the cheek and takes off.

"It ain't over till the fat lady sings." Cassie massages her cheek and chases after the stalker.

The stalker cuts through a narrow alley and performs impressive parkour skills that seemed almost unmatched. _Almost_ unmatched. Cassie was skilled in parkour with twelve years experience.

But the way how the man was able to perform smooth slick skills by jumping over obstacles without leaving so much as a fingerprint indicates that he has much more experience.

The stalker jumps onto a dumpster with both feet and jumps to the ladder of the balcony. By the time Cassie was on the dumpster, the man was using the balcony railing to jump to a pipe and start crawling upwards.

 _Amateur_ , Cassie thought. She took the faster way and just jumped from the dumpster to the pipe and crawled like a spider upwards. Her luck with breaking things was about a match to her father's.

The pipe bent under the combined weight of the stalker and Cassie and fell from the wall and towards the ground. The stalker fell a good twenty-five feet to the ground while Cassie fell a good twelve feet to her feet.

The stalker fell on hard on his back with the wind knocked out of him, but he was successful in kipping up and staggering away from Cassie.

"Where are you going buddy? We still got an hour of playtime!" Cassie grinned as she sprinted towards the man. "Get back here you stalker! YOU STALKER! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME; I CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH!"

The stalker ignored two things as he ran: the pain and Cassie.

Cassie followed the stalker as he ran out the alley and across a street of incoming traffic. The clothing he wore had nothing specific on so getting lost in a crowd would be easy for him. He was not trying to lose Cassie thought, he was trying to lead her to a very specific place. If she lost him in the crowd and he came back, then she would know something was up. He had to make it look like going into a crowd was not an option.

Cassie was brushed by an oncoming car. "God's balls I almost got hit!" She had not lost eye contact with the stalker and saw him running towards a crowd. Like a hand from God, the stalkers path towards a crowd was blocked off by a city bus that drove in front of him. And a car to his left ran over him and sent him flying across the ground. The car didn't even slow down as it drove away.

Cassie observed from afar and barely dodged a truck that was about to hit her. Cassie heard the sounds of car horns mixing into the loud sounds of ancient Egyptian music. Something from that one Scooby Doo movie with those mummies.

 _That just had to be playing while I'm in Egypt?!_

Cassie was struck from behind and fell to her knees. She felt as if a hammer struck her in the back, but the object that landed beside her from behind was a rearview mirror. A rearview mirror hit her.

The stalker moaned as he laid flat on the ground until a speeding car's front left tire ran over the downed stalker. Tire marks were all that remained on the stalkers face.

Cassie rolled as she dodged an incoming car and towards the stalkers corpse. The people on the sidewalk just gave odd looks at the possible crime scene.

Cassie made sure she left no fingerprints on the suspected hostile and checked him. Cassie could always tell the difference between low-level stalker and I-Work-For-Someone-And-Will-Kill-You-If-You-Interfere. The deceased stalker fits into the latter category.

The odd thing about the dead stalker was his wrist tattoo. "I wonder what 584910 means," she says to herself. The bus in front of her takes off and a whole crowd of people stares at the corpse in disgust. "Nothing happened, poor sap got hit by a car. Sad, really."

"We'll show you SAD!"

Cassie was launched forward and towards the crowd of people. Instead of catching her, they just moved out the way simultaneously and allowed Cassie to fall down a flight of stairs that led to a closed-off construction site. Cassie rubbed her hips as she got up and looked back in the direction she fell in and the sole of a shoe was all she saw for a split second before she was launched backward and into a pit of sand.

"I'm sorry, did we hurt you?" a sly voice spoke to her. Cassie looked and saw a single man with two others standing behind him. "We're so sorry for what happened, but you are responsible for the death of our friend."

"He got himself killed," Cassie snapped as she slapped the sand off her shoulders. Her skin turned a grayish color from the sand as the three men took a few steps closer towards her. Cassie kips up to her feet just as the three men charged her. Cassie punched the one to her right and hurled him towards the one on her left. The middleman threw a kick at her face, which she jerked her head back in time and punched the middleman several times in the gut.

"Oh no you don't," the right man said just before he got kicked in the throat and fell into an open hole in the ground. He tried to climb out, but the gray tubing above him tipped over and several whole gallons of cement poured onto him and buried him to death.

Cassie gripped the hair of the middleman and hammered his head numerous times into the wall of a shipping container. The middle man's blood was all that was left on the container by the time that Cassie kneed him in the groin and shoved him into a pair of oil drums, spilling black ooze around the sand that surrounded him.

The last man left alive was the left man. She remembered him and turned around and she ended up receiving a hammer fist to both of her cheeks, twice. She ignored the pain and tried to punch him. He deflected the blow and punched her in the stomach and body slammed her.

"What is this? A jig?" Cassie rolls away while he was still heaving from exhaustion. Even when he was exhausted, he still managed to do a no hands front flip towards her and hammer fist her again. Cassie was completely unexpected to the blow that came next: a powerful uppercut that lifted her slightly off the ground and landing near an excavator.

"You shouldn't have killed my friends you whore," the left man kicks Cassie in the leg. "You have no idea who we work for or what we are able to achieve."

"You've achieved being the biggest idiot in the world. No the biggest asshole in the world." Cassie blocked the next kick with her legs. "Who are you guys?"

"All in good times Drake."

Cassie narrowed her eyes at him. "You know my name?"

"We always know the name of our targets." His sentence was cut short when she kneed him in the groin and kicked him in the jaw with the balls of both of her feet. He staggered backward and almost fell into the still filling hole of cement but managed to plant his balance.

Cassie crawled inside the excavator and the man rushed at her and grabbed the ankle to her left foot just as she climbed through. Yanking her foot back as if she was in a tug of war, she accidentally hits a lever with her elbow that turns the excavator on.

The man that was yanking her was standing on the continuous tracks of the excavator and as soon as they moved, he lost his balance and grip of Cassie's ankle. It was not a win-lose though. The left man lost his balance, Cassie lost her balance and fell onto the other continuous track of the excavator.

Cassie rolled herself off of the continuous tracks just before she was about to be crushed. She saved herself, but she heard the agonizing cries come on the other side of the excavator. Cassie crawled as far away as possible from the moving excavator and saw it leave a huge pool of blood in the sand.

"And I thought getting cut up by propellers was gory, but this tops all kinds of goriness." Cassie covered her nose from the smell of blood and turned away in disgust. She wipes the dust off of her and gets to her feet and gazes upon the wet blood in front of her.

Then she smelled something foul. Something that smelled so bad, it had the potential to make someone throw up. "Did someone leak gas from their car or something? That smell is agonizing already."

"I'll show you agony!"

Cassie was tackled from the waist from behind by a strong opponent, but she twirled her body around and threw the opponent to the ground. Her opponent in front of her was the middleman, with the right side of his body covered in gasoline-like ooze.

The middleman was alive and coated in oil from the spill over oil drums. What was alarming even to Cassie was that some of the oil was leaking into his bleeding scalp. Cassie's eyes widened at the sight and instead of defending herself, she decided to kill the man because he was going to get an infection in his brain and die slowly and painfully.

Cassie was not the kind of person to inflict pain on someone or let them suffer. Friend or Foe. Her enemy may be merciless, but she was merciful.

The man struggled to get to his feet as he kept constantly losing his balance and one of his hands were clutching the wound in his head. The sizzling pain in his head hurt like fire. He was devoted to the cause, so this was just another obstacle he had to overcome and fulfill the reason why he was sent here.

Behind the middleman, Cassie saw a sharp rod piled on top of a big pile of sharp rods. All it would take to put this man out of his misery would be to push him and make sure his heart would be stabbed.

"You ain't winning this battle, Drake? We will beat you." The man collapsed to one of his knees as he turned to face the girl.

"I've no idea who you are, but I can see that you're in pain. I'm going to put you out of your misery." Cassie watched as the man stood up to both feet clumsily before she ran up to him and performed an impressive dropkick to his chest that was as powerful as a running horse that sent him flying back into the pile of sharp rods...with one of them stabbing him clean through the heart.

The man gave his last breath as his life was stolen away from him and he went to the other side. Cassie looked sad upon the man and walked away from the construction site, not wanting to be there by the time the police arrive. "I did it to put you out of your misery."

* * *

 **Farid Zaman**

 **Born: Like I'm Going To Tell You (May 19, 2000)**

 **ID #: 584901**

 **Hair: Brown**

 **Eye: Brown  
Height: Six feet  
Weight: One-ninety-five**

 **Nationality: Egyptian  
Relatives: Classified**

 **Biography: Classified (He can't show his face to Cassie)**


	5. Horus

Days have passed since Cassie had her little lethal encounter with the four mysterious men and she had opted not to tell anybody about it. It didn't matter because today was the day that she was going to explore the Great Pyramid of Giza. Derek had been questioning why Cassie wasn't so keen on revealing what happened to her after he took Omaria out for strawberries and he would actually make jokes about her becoming senile and old. This, of course, earned him a hard slap across the face.

Cassie has dressed appropriately for the desert; a long white shirt with the long sleeves rolled up with khaki pants and white converses. Derek was dressed in a blue flannel with jeans and leather black boots while both Omaria and her photographer ( **Cassie is rolling her eyes because Kamille keeps taking annoying snapshots** ) cousin Kamille wore simple t-shirts with shorts.

"Alright guys, let's get to it," Cassie said as she gazed at the beautiful pyramid under the perfect blue sky filled with clouds. "Omaria, you said that we would meet the excavation leader named Farid or something?"

Omaria nodded. "He's the man with the red shirt and khaki pants." As Omaria gave her description of Faird, Kamille began taking pictures of the excavation site and of her cousin and friends. Cassie loved posing for the camera.

In the corner of her eye, she saw the Omaria talking to the man she described. She listened as Omaria and Farid spoke in Arabic. Cassie was very fluent in Arabic, but the only reason that Omaria was brought along the trip was that she knew the excavation leader. Cassie figured that once Omaria was done talking to the excavation leader for clearance, then her usefulness will turn into uselessness. But she had been insistent on exploring the tomb with them. Kamille was just here to take photos for her magazine company.

Omaria hugged Farid and went back to the trio to let them know that they now have authorized clearance to go in the pyramid.

"Cassie," Derek cooed. "We are going inside the tomb," he sang.

"Tell me something I don't know," Cassie sang back at him. Cassie and Derek followed Omaria towards the pyramid, Cassie skipping.

* * *

Cassie leads the group with the only light in the place being her zippo. Cassie looked at the beautiful hieroglyphs on the old wall. She shifted the zippo to her left hand and held it above her head and ran the fingertips of her right hand along the smooth wall and hieroglyphs.

One hieroglyph in particular stood out from her. She stopped in her her tracks and zoomed in on the symbol. She recognized the symbol as an object from the bible. "The Ark of the Covenant."

"Been found before," Derek said.

"Yeah in 1936." Cassie moved along the hallways. The hallways got more narrow as they moved deeper and the blackness seemed to be increasing. The lighter in her hand was beginning to burn her fingertips like wax on a candle. She heard the snapshot of a camera and deduced that Kamille took a picture of the biblical object.

"Hey Cassie, you want me to take lead on this one?"

Cassie refused Derek's offer. "No. If you won't let me drive a jeep, then I won't let you take the point." She hasn't forgotten in Bosnia how he refused to let her drive a jeep. "Fair point...right?"

Cassie used her 'Nathan Drake' climbing skills to climb up a wall. She was forced to shut off her light so she could climb in the dark with both hands, so she used her animal-like night vision to spot for handholds and footholds. Once she was at the top, she lowered her grappling hook for the others.

Cassie switched back on her zippo and walked forward. Cassie and Derek told Omaria and Kamille to stay behind while they explored ahead. One of the hieroglyphs that Cassie saw warned them of traps up ahead.

"Look at this," Derek said as he pointed to the hieroglyphs on the wall beside him. "These look cool."

Cassie rubbed the hieroglyphs as she read them. " 'Horus will watch over you' " She looked at Dere with narrow eyes. "Can you believe that the son of Isis and Osiris is watching over us?"

Derek's face lit up with a huge smile on his face. "Hey Horus, why don't you send up a message. Give us something that lets us know you're real. Send lightning our way."

"Don't mock Horus like that," Cassie told. "He could send that lightning up your ass." She broke out laughing. "I love myself. Cassie loves herself."

"So if this was a trap, then what is it?" Derek slammed his shoulder into the wall twice and he fell through. Cassie jumped through after him and accidentally kicked him in the jaw. "Watch your step woman!"

"Sorry D-Man," she apologizes. "Why did you slam yourself into the wall?"

"I didn't do it on purpose." Derek groans as he massages his jaw. "You have a deadly heel you know that? Anyways, I did not slam into the wall on purpose; I was possessed. I felt like something was pulling me towards the wall."

Cassie offered her hand to help Derek up and he accepted it. "You were possessed?" She gives an exaggerated gasp. "Maybe it was Basts."

Cassie was so busy with joking with her 'boy friend' that she never had the opportunity to actually look around and see what kind of room they were in. They were going to need a bigger light because this room was a whole kind of darkness. Luckily for them, a wooden stick was at her feet. She picked it up and noticed the cloth on the end of it. She used her zippo to light it which gave her a clear view of Derek's face and the contents of the room around them. The room they looked to be a ritual room.

Cassie lit up an scorch beside her which lit up all the other scorches around them and gave them the perfect lighting. It was definitely a big room with a jeweled chair at the very end. Cassie paid close attention to detail and saw that the walls were made of solid gold and the silky carpet on the ground had not a speck of dust. The hieroglyphs on the wall were unlike anything that she had seen before.

"Wow, the room," Cassie said. "Looks like a good place to have sex in."

Derek was now aroused and picturing Cassie naked. His heart pumped and he almost lost consciousness had it not been for Cassie putting the torch near his skin. "Wake up bird brain."

"Thank you. Where the hell are we?"

"It looks like some kind of ritual room," Cassie said. She took a step forward with the torch in her hand and towards the jeweled chair and bowed down to one knee. "I think this is a test, Derek."

Derek bowed beside her and lowered his head. "A test to what? What are we even looking for?"

"Nothing in particular," she answered. "There's an upside to that though. We can stumble upon something by accident and go on from there. I'm a glass half full kind of person. I know this test has something to do with Horus though."

Cassie looked above the chair and two paintings on the wall and saw Horus and Seth. "I read legends that Horus defeated Set. Another thing was that both Horus and Set blessed Ramesses II."

"Horus will watch over us," Derek repeated. "Maybe the trial is to-"

"WATCH!" Cassie blurted. " _WATCH_! Horus's left eye was damaged in battle by the god Set." She stands up and looks at the wall they came through. Above the hole was a painting of Thoth. To the left side of the wall was Isis and to the right side was Osiris. "We have Horus's parents, his brother, and Thoth." She handed him the torch and began thinking to herself out loud. "Okay, so Set plucked out Horus's left eye out and the left eye represents the moon while his right eye represents the sun, AKA Ra."

Derek looks over the painting and sees that Horus has both eyes. "He still has both eyes."

"Yeah he does," Cassie inhaled deeply as conclusions flood her head on a massive scale. "I think the test is we stab his left eye out. Something similar to Set."

"How do we know that this pyramid was built before Horus came into the light?"

Cassie already had an answer. "Horus was discovered before this pyramid was built. He existed in the prehistoric Egypt and the Giza pyramid was built sometime in the Early Dynasty Period. By then, everyone in Egypt would've been completely aware of who Horus was and what happened to his eye. Egyptian people are very religious, especially people back then. They never would've disrespected a god like Horus by giving him two eyes. The people who built this temple are definitely hiding something."

"So we gouge out Horus's eye like a bird?"

"Yes. I think we are supposed to use something to get rid of his left eye. Then again, maybe there's a button and his left eye is the button."

"What did Set use to pluck out Horus's eye with?"

"I don't know." She looked around the room to see if she could find anything sharp. "There has to be something in this room that we could use. In case I'm wrong, can you push his left eye to see if his left eye is a button?"

Derek tossed the torch aside and climbed up the chair and pressed the left eye. Nothing happened. He kept pressed numerous times until he realized that there was no button. "You're right."

"Wait can you say that a couple dozen times?" Cassie leaned backward, enjoying herself. "You think we can use a knife to poke a hole into his left eye?"

"You just proved yourself right to me and you're asking me something that you figured out?"

Cassie growled with annoyance at him. "No one asked Derek." She turned back and jogged towards the hole they fell through. She peeked her head out and scanned for sharp objects.

Derek stared longingly at her rear end and smiled with all his might. He was about to pass out until Cassie turned around holding a small piece of debris in her hands. This piece of debris had a sharp end that looked like it could fit through Horus's left eye.

"Whoa Cassie, where did you get that thing from?" He moved out the way as Cassie threw the sharp debris like a spear. Derek watched it soar through the air and pierce the painting like a bullseye. The very tip stabbed into the left eye perfectly. Cassie's markswoman skills were something that Derek was totally fond of. If Cassie made a career as an archer, then he would definitely pay full price to see all her competitions.

"You see that bitches, that is how you spear a spear." She balls up her fists and throws her hand into the air. "Ten points for Cassie Drake."

The painting did make a move in fact. The painting made a groaning sound and the hands slightly moved, giving the notion that the painting was not a painting, but a mechanical device with Horus painted on top and the left eye was indeed a button that could only be unlocked by a certain type of pressure.

Cassie helped Derek up and the two walked towards the moving statues. The moving Horus statue took a bowing position while the Set painting-or statue-took a standing position and raised a single hand over Horus's head. Now it looked like Horus was bowing down to his brother.

"Aw man that's cool," Derek commented like a four-year-old. "It looks like centuries old mechanicals do work."

Cassie took a step towards the figures and listened for anything that comes after. Nothing appeared to happen, but Cassie's keen senses picked up something that made her look up towards the ceiling. "Hey look, it's Ra."

Derek looked up and saw something else. "And there's a bell up there. Maybe we're supposed to ring it somehow?"

"Stay here and I'll climb up there and ring it for us." Cassie kept looking at the ceiling with the bell and Ra painting and began climbing up. Lacking any safety equipment, she used the handholds and footholds to ascend and refused to look down.

"Be careful Cassie!"

Cassie reached the ceiling and steadied herself by gluing her feet to the wall and leaning over with one hand gripping onto a handhold. She leaned out towards the rope dangling underneath the bell. "Swinging on an age-old rope?" She told herself that Derek would catch her and she launched herself. She grabbed the rope with both hands and swung forward. The rope was connected to something big and heavy to ring the bell. Once the bell was rung, Cassie howled in pain from her knife pierced ears and the rope broke due to her weight.

Cassie screamed as she plunged and fell right on top of Derek, her fall cushioned by him. Unbeknownst to them, the Horus statue stood up once more while Set went into a bowing position. A hole in the Horus chest opened up and revealed a triangular object inside.

Cassie rolled one way while Derek rolled the other. The rope was not the only thing that fell due to Cassie's weight. The bell crashed into the ground and Cassie's head was just inches away. Had she rolled short, then her head would've been crushed to a bloody pulp.

Cassie rubbed her ribcage and pulled herself to her feet. She was the first to notice the hole in Horus's chest and she became intrigued. She limped towards the statue with her hand stretched forward. She could feel the familiar rush in her; the thrill of finding something made her excited. She was so excited about discovering something that had not been found by another being in a million years that she forgot about Derek.

Just as her fingertips brushed against the object, a hard object smacked itself against the back of her head, blacking her out in an instant.

* * *

 **Hamed Najam**

 **Born: December 24, 1998**

 **ID #: 584902**

 **Hair: Dark brown**

 **Eye: Hazel**

 **Height: Five-eleven  
Weight: Two hundred**

 **Nationality: Egyptian  
Relatives: None known**

 **Biography: Classified (But he is an Overlord lieutenant)**


	6. Immunity

Hamed shoved the tied up and unconscious Cassie towards the ground beside the tied up and unconscious Derek. Two Overlord soldiers set the unconscious duo up so they were sitting in a criss-cross position. Hamed looked to his right and at the hole that Derek created with his shoulder. He put both hands to his mouth and shouted, "You can come out now!"

Zaman, in a desert scarf that covered only his mouth, stepped into the room. The scar around his mouth had a skull design, but it was folded halfway so he has a skeleton mouth. Behind him who were shoved through the hole were Omaria and Kamille, who were both had their hands bound in front of them with duct tape and scarves as gags in their mouths.

Zaman made sure that his mask was secure as two Overlord soldiers shoved Omaria and Kamille to their butts next to the unconscious treasure hunting duo.

Zaman shifted his focus from Hamed to Lachina and Salaam near Cassie and Derek, then to Khaled and Harkov behind Omaria and Kamille.

Zaman's attention was now to the hole in the chest of Horus. Zaman laughed quietly, a sign of eagerness and walks towards the hole with caution. Once he was close, he inserted his left hand into the hole and grabbed the somewhat heavy triangular object. He held it up to his eye level and studied it hard.

Aside from the triangle shape and the fact that it's weight was something similar to a boulder, there was a triangle hole in the center with the tipped edges pointed. Around the edges had some kind of writing. When Zaman looked closer, he saw on the insides of the triangular hole were more Egyptian writing. Zaman knew his Egyptian, both modern and ancient, but he could not comprehend whatever language this was. To him, they looked like nothing more than simple squiggles.

"Kamille," he says as he looks from the object to the restrained girl. He quickly walks to her position and kneels down. The purple haired Lachina forces Kamille by gripping his jaw and throat to look up at Zaman as he showed him the object. "You tell us what this is. You tell us what kind of language this is." She shook her head at his command, which to Zaman, was a sign of either cowardice or bravery. He patted her on the shoulder and offered her a warm smile. "Well then, I'll just turn to Omaria."

Salaam was having fun playing with Kamille's camera.

He heard a groaning coming from Cassie as she slowly tilted her head up and eyes slowly opened. He made sure his mask covered any revealing features before he crawled towards her like a leopard. His face directly in front of hers by the time she was fully awake.

Cassie jolted slightly when she saw the masked man in front of her. "Man, if I knew the boogeyman was as ugly as you, I would've died," Cassie jokes. She kept her head still, but her eyes roamed all over the room. She spotted Hamed and the others. She noted how they were all wearing not a single uniform, but a uniform from a different country. The person in front of her was wearing red camouflage, signifying Russia. The others wore uniforms that mainly originated from Asia, but they all had one thing in common, their embroidered patch. Whatever group or organization they are or came from, their insignia was the earth with the land masses dark red and the oceans black. The one thing that stood out the most to her was the only woman in the room had her hair dyed purple. _Who the hell dyes their hair purple?_ Cassie had no idea who these people were, only that they were bad news.

"If I were you, Drake, I'd watch the mouth," Zaman said. "I'm not kidding. You have no idea what we are capable of."

Cassie looked to her left and saw that both Omaria and Kamille were unharmed before she nudged the unconscious Derek to her right awake before she turned back to Zaman. "Who are you? You must be some big shot for this group you're with if you know my name."

"Forget my name, forget our name, you don't need to know that."

"And what's with the mask? You know Halloween's not for a long time. Then again, your face might be ugly."

Zaman was seething with anger through his mask that only Cassie detected like a lie detector. She saw his forehead turn red from rage, which gave her the indication that she should just shut up. Her awkward silence allowed for Zaman to calm down and show her the object in his hands; the object she tried to grab before her lights went out. Given as to how she was still feeling sore on the back of her skull, she must've been knocked out for a few minutes. That must've been the case because not all the dust from when the bell fell was completely gone. "What is this thing? What the hell is it?" Zaman demanded.

Cassie looked at the object and shook her head after examining it. "Sorry man, but I don't know what that thing is."

Zaman was turning red from rage as he turned his head over his right shoulder and to the tall man in the Spetsnaz uniform. "584902, truth serum!"

Cassie's eyes widened as the one with the long serial number reached into his inside right jacket pocket and pull out two syringes and handing them both to the only female in the room. Then, he pulled out a bottle for rubbing alcohol out and Cassie saw the clear liquid in. She could only imagine what kind of pharmacological torture they were going to perform on her.

"Don't worry Drake, the good doctor knows what he's doing," Hamed said with sarcasm obvious in his voice, something Cassie was not a stranger to. "This bottle I hold in my hand will just make you feel relaxed. You won't be harmed in any way." He unscrewed the bottle cap off before Lachina handed him a syringe. He grabbed it with his right hand and held the bottle at a forty-five degree angle before inserting the needle in and taking out a small dose of clear fluids. "If you don't scream, I'll give you a lollipop."

"Hey, that's my favorite song," Cassie commented cheerfully, obviously oblivious to whatever drug they were going to give her. _Wait a second, why am I not worried; They're going to drug me with something nasty?_ Cassie didn't have enough time to think before Hamed handed Zaman the syringe and he poked her in the arm with it.

 _I hate doctors. Their needles that are used to poke substances that aren't supposed to be in your body, those rubber gloves for when they tell you to bend over. Those masks they wear to hide their identities from public. Those ties, what kind of a doctor wears a tie?_

Cassie winced as she felt the needle poke deep into the dominant vein of her left arm. "What are you poking me with?"

"Why do you want to know?" Zaman finished injecting the contents into her arm and pulled it out.

"Because I'm afraid of it being poisonous," she answered with honesty, making Zaman smile.

"It is nothing poisonous." The smile on his face though was not comforting in any way possible. "It's just something to make you feel relaxed. Something to make you feel weightless for a while. Something that takes the edges off your mind. It's a truth serum."

"How can it be a truth serum?"

"Simple, 584902 here designed it so we can interrogate our prisoners without causing them any physical harm. Torture is not something we believe in. Not the physical way at least. We torture people all kinds of ways except physically. This truth serum does work; It works beautifully."

"Am I going to die?"

"No, but you will feel numb for an hour top." Zaman cut the duct tape around her wrists. He grabbed Cassie's left hand and held it up for a second before dropping it to the ground. She felt nothing but numbness. "Now, hold out your hands and grabbed this triangle thing."

Cassie, despite feeling numb in her arms, grabbed the object and looked at it with intensity. "You want me to read this? No problemo." At least she still had her sense of humor inherited from her father. She read the squiggles all over the object, front and back, and could not figure out anything. But she did see one symbol that stood out to the rest on the very bottom of the back. The symbol looked like a cross but the top of the cross was circular and resembled the Ankh symbol.

"You see something I know it," Zaman said cheerfully. "You see something on the symbol don't you?"

Cassie slurred in her speech. "Yes, I do...It's the…"

"Boss," a voice shouted. All heads turned towards the only entrance into the room to see another soldier jumping through with panting breaths. This soldier was particularly young with chocolate brown hair and dark skin, having originated from Africa. Given as to how he was panting, he must've been running the whole way here. "Someone saw us, the police are on their way. Are you serious?!"

"Achmed, there are actually police on the way? How many minutes do we have at most?" Zaman tried to sound confident, but his worry for the mission took over and clouded his clear mind like a bad storm. His mind was so clouded, he didn't realize that he addressed him by his actual

"I'd say thirty minutes," Achmed answered. "Man, running in this heat was obviously a bad idea. Lachina, I need some water."

"No name," she scolded. "You're 584907 and I am 584903." The female with the hair dyed purple tossed him a water bottle and he drank from it with pure greed. "584907, go back out there and load the trucks up. Oh, and kill the person who snitched on us."

"That would be Farid."

Lachina just gave a I-Guess-That's-That shrug. "You know what to do and how to do it."

"I'll make the son of a bitch wish he were never born." Achmed tossed back the water bottle before exiting through the hole.

Zaman turned back to Cassie and demanded that she hurry up and tell what the symbol meant as their time was now limited. "Hurry the hell up!"

"You used a bad word," Cassie jokes. "I won't tell you what it is unless you say it politely."

Zaman clutched the knuckles of his right hand in her left hand and cracked a few bones. "We don't have much time whore, so tell me what I want to know."

Cassie stared at the masked Zaman with a sour look on her face, indicating to him that he crossed the line by calling her a whore. He put his hands on his forehead as he grumbled in frustration. "You just called me a whore, why?"

"I'm sorry, I crossed the moral line saying that. Just please decipher what the symbol means so we can get out of here."

Cassie looked down at the symbol for a brief second before she looked at the masked man in front of her. "What was in the truth serum? Tell me and I will answer your question. What is the main ingredient?"

Zaman looked at Hamed for approval to talk. Hamed walked towards him and kneeled down to his level and whispered into his ear that he was allowed to say it. "Benzodiazepines."

Cassie slurred in her speech with a smile across her face. "Such a long name and one that can't be pronounced. But since it's that drug, I have one thing to say…" She holds the triangular object to her chest before she throws it hard towards Hamed's chest. His chest caught it and he fell back on the seat of his pants. In a swift motion, she swiped Zaman off his feet before grabbing her piton on her waist and hurling it towards the one called Salaam.

Omaria jumped to her feet and rammed her back into Lachina. Kamille rammed into Harkov and Khaled like a bull before they could even react.

Derek rolled to his side and kicked Zaman in the chest.

Cassie grabbed the object from Hamed, gasping for air like a fish, making Cassie realized that she literally knocked the wind out of him.

Salaam yanked the bloody piton out of his shoulder, but not before Cassie kicks him in the throat and strike him with the object. Cassie kept her eyes on Salaam as she blindly threw the piton at Derek, landing only three feet from his position.

He kicks Zaman in the temple before rolling to his left and grabbing the hilt of the piton in his teeth. He turned his head as far as he could over his right shoulder, his bound hands moving under his shoulder before he opened his mouth and let the piton fall. He successfully caught it in the palm of his right hand and he went on cutting himself loose of the duct tape. Once he was free, the first thing he did was assist Kamille in taking out Khaled and Harkov.

Salaam threw a punch, but Cassie caught his wrist with her left hand and twisted it. The bones in his wrist broke, and then she twisted his arm all the way around until his elbow was exposed and she took the moment to raise her left knee up, place it on his elbow, and hammer it down, breaking his arm instantly with a howl and bringing him down to his kneecaps.

Zaman lifted his head up and saw Cassie and Omaria fighting Lachina while Kamille and Derek were fighting Khaled and Harkov. Zaman springs to his feet and sprints towards Cassie with his fist aimed for her head.

Cassie felt a tingle in the back of her skull. She cocks her head slightly and jerks her head down with adrenaline. Zaman ended up punching the wall by mistake, but no pain existed in his knuckles.

While in a crouching position, Cassie rotated her body and kneed Zaman in the gut while his arm was still above her and his fist connected to the wall. The knee to the gut felt like a hammer that sent him backwards with a fold of his body.

Kamille was the first to jump through the hole after Derek cut her free, then Omaria, and then Derek himself.

Cassie walked back towards the hole with a mocking smile towards the pain-ridden Zaman. "Hey whoever you are? You wanted to know what I was saying earlier? I'm immune to truth serum."

She turned towards the hole and leaped out, proud at what she said. Then she realized that none of them were killed and they were going after them and she doubted that this would be the last time she would see whatever organization these guys are from.


	7. Humanity

Cassie leaped forward and performed a somersault as she fell through a small, but big enough gap in the floor. The others were directly in front of her, but she did not worry about them at this time. Once she returned to her feet from the somersault, she continued to run. Eventually, she made it back to the edge that she climbed up from earlier. Derek and the others already climbed down, but she wanted to get down quickly so she jumped. She snapped her wrist out to grab the hook around her belt loop, snaps her wrist again to connect the hook to an exposed beam on the ceiling, swinging over and letting go. She planted both feet below her as they connected to the ground.

"What a land," she comments to herself before picking up on the run back to the entrance they came through. Before she moved on, she took the triangle object and bent it slightly, shocking Cassie upon the realization that the object can actually fold. She folded the triangle three times before it was small enough to fit in the back of her pants. She ran through and as soon as she was three feet outside, she was hit in the right hip by a missile-like object and fell belly first to the ground, sand being picked up in her face and blinding her for a brief second. She looks back at her attack and sees a soldier standing above her in a similar uniform to Zaman's. Only this time, this soldier had an actual gun and he was going to whack her head with it. He raised the butt of his assault rifle above his head, giving Cassie the chance to kick the soldier in the stomach with the heel of her right sneaker. The man folded over in immense pain, one hand going to his stomach with his other hand releasing the grip of his gun, dropping it to the ground.

Cassie sweeps the soldier off his feet, causing him to land on the seat of his cargo pants and allowing her to kick the soldier in the jaw, snapping his head back and knocking him out. She kips up to her feet just as another soldier with a knife charge at her.

Cassie punched the knife soldier in the gut first, locked the hand with the knife in her elbow and twisted his wrist, breaking his bone and snatching the knife from him. She hurls him to the side like a sack of potatoes before she is confronted by another soldier.

Cassie saw one soldier in front of her charging at her, but behind her, she saw five soldiers charging at her. _One against six doesn't seem fair,_ she thought as a mischievous grin crossed her lips.

The first soldier throws a leg up to kick Cassie, but he underestimated her in every way shape and form. Cassie grabbed the inside of his knee with her left elbow, caught his torso with her right arm and actually lifted the man off the ground like he was a bag of feathers. She twirled with the soldier in her grasp, disorienting the man before she throws him into the group of five soldiers just as they stopped, knocking all of them down like bowling pins. The first one who got to his feet was immediately stabbed in the throat by her and his body was kicked away.

Two more soldiers regained their stance and attacked Cassie with knives of their own. Cassie dodged the first slash thrown at her by the soldier on her right and kicked him in the groin. The second one slashed at Cassie numerous times, the young archaeologists using her agility to swiftly cut the air with her knife which she used as a shield. When she finished playing defense, she played offense and slashed the man in the tendon in his arm before stabbing him in the collarbone, killing. The one she kicked in the groin was barely sitting on his knees by the time that Cassie was finished. She removes the knife from the man's collarbone and turns her full attention to the injured soldier. She grabbed him by the torso, lifted him and threw him over her shoulder like nothing, his feet smashing against a block of the pyramid, breaking bones in both ankles.

The remaining three soldiers have finally had enough and as soon as they stood back up, they all drew single individual pistols and all their lines of sights were drawn on the girl. Cassie was strong, but she was as smart as Albert Einstein. She knew that taking on three armed men with a knife was like diving in a pool of hydrochloric acid.

She did the honorable thing of crossing her arms over her chest with the knife still in her hand. "Boys, I may be a girl, but I am smart. Matter a fact, women are ten times smarter than you three buffoons."

"Shut up Drake and drop the gun," one of them demanded. Cassie presumed the sergeant. "We have the better numbers, we have the guns, but you have something we want."

"You guys part of that one guy's team inside the pyramid?" Cassie asked with a calm voice that made all three soldiers arch their eyebrows. "You guys sure are are ya?"

"Drop the goddamn knife before we pull the trigger," the sergeant warned, cocking his gun. "I will pull the trigger."

"You won't, or else you won't know where I hid the one thing that your boss wants," she quipped the first thing off her mind. "If you kill me, then who knows what could happen? You guys could lose what you guys are looking for." Her eyes kept shifting positions from the three soldiers to the field behind them, just fast enough for her to be looking in two different locations that the soldiers would not notice. _Where the hell is Derek?_

"You are lying," the Sergeant sighed. "You are lying through your teeth, so hand us what we want."

"How do you even know it's on me?"

"We were radioed just seconds before you came out." The two soldiers stayed behind as the sergeant moved forward towards her. "You better give us what we want before things get incredibly brutal. You want to know what happened to the last guy?"

 _Please don't be Derek._

"His name was Derek and we killed him. As soon as he, Omaria and Kamille came out of the pyramid, we slaughtered them, took them to the Nile river to drown them."

Cassie knew that the sergeant was lying. Scientifically, it was impossible to run from the Great Pyramid of Giza to the Nile river in less than two minutes, but she was wondering where Derek, Omaria, and Kamille. She had to think of something to escape from these goons and find her friend, especially Derek.

The sergeant kept his gun trained on her as he reached for his waist and pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it in another language.

 _Latin,_ she deduced. _He's speaking Latin, luckily I know my Latin. Sic Parvis Magna._ Cassie slightly leaned forward, her head turning to the right so her ear could hear what the sergeant was saying. The sergeant was saying something, but the voice on the other end was gargled, so it was like talking to someone with loud music playing in the background.

Cassie opened her mouth to say something else, before blinking in surprise at seeing the sergeant and the two soldiers tackled from behind. Derek, Omaria and Kamille found their way back to her and saved her.

The sergeant was tackled by Derek, who proceeded to kick the man in the gut. The sergeant retaliated and punched Derek in the jaw and kicked him off. He raised the gun to shoot him, but Derek already swatted it away like a fly and kicked him in the collarbone.

The other two were knocked unconscious by the two women, leaving only the sergeant alive. Derek already had his hands around the sergeant's throat and squeezing the life out of him.

A single gunshot rang out behind Derek, causing him to jump and relax his grip around the sergeant's throat, allowing him to place a boot on his stomach and flip him over. Cassie saw Kamille's body stiffen and she collapsed with a loud thud to the sandy ground. A bullet shaped hole in the spine of her back went clean through the heart and killing her instantly.

"KAMILLE!" Omaria howled, horrified that her cousin just died. She looked over her head, a soldier with a revolver in hand gave off a smug smile before lowering his gun. "You killed my cousin."

The gunman just laughed and waved his gun to her. "And it was quite fun killing her." His comment set Omaria off, resulting in her sprinting towards him, oblivious to him aiming the gun. However, instead of shooting her, he just tossed his gun away and waited for the first punch to come at him.

Cassie's eyes widened at what was about to happen, her friend was going to kill a defenseless person.

Derek crawled to his feet just as Cassie ran past him and started catching up to her as Omaria reeled her fist back to punch the soldier.

Cassie tackled Omaria while Derek punched the soldier in the gut and kneed him in the face. He grabbed both shoulders with both hands and squeezed like trying to crush something. He yanked the soldier towards him and sent him flying through the air to land on the sergeant. The sergeant's agility was enough to make him move out the way in time, but not stop the man from hitting the ground face first.

The sergeant crawled to his gun, his arm extended as far as his limit would allow him to. The second the skin of his fingertip grazed the smooth grip, a shot of agony pierced him in the side, a sharp pointed object buried itself deep into his skin and rip the intercostal arteries and right lung apart. Cassie threw the knife at the sergeant before he could get the chance to even shoot them and he growled at her like a wild dog, but the pain still overtook him and made him purse his lips together and bite down on his own tongue. The sergeant moaned in pain, but his strength was still enough to still reach for the gun and take aim at the three.

The sergeant howled before his entire body went limp.

The soldier that killed Kamille laid still on the ground with his head looking at the corpse of his sergeant, somewhat startled. He paid no attention to Cassie, Derek or Omaria (especially Omaria).

Derek required the assistance of Cassie to hold back Omaria from killing the soldier. Both treasure hunters knew that the soldier deserved to die, but not to die like this. They were not going to let that murderous rage overtake Omaria.

"Omaria, don't," Cassie practically begged on her knees. "If you do this, then there is no going back from it."

"You have no idea what he just did," Omaria spat. "That asshole killed my cousin. He killed her right in front of me; he has to pay for what he's done."

"Omaria," Cassie spoke softly. "Remember what the Egyptians did back then? They would take out the heart of a dead pharaoh, test to see if their heart was as light as a feather in order for them to go to a good place. If you do this, then your heart will be as heavy as a rock and you will go to a bad place when you die."

"What about you?" Omaria replied. "You've killed people; you've killed countless people."

"I've killed people in self-defense, but never murdered them. Let me take care of that jackass for you."

Derek held Omaria back by the shoulders. Cassie moved towards the soldier as he crawled to his feet, getting ready to attack Cassie. The first punch he threw at her was caught with her left hand, which was then twisted in an unnatural angle, a loud cracking noise filling the air.

She elbowed him in his inner elbow, breaking his bone even more before dragging him forward and to his left knee. She twists his arm a few more times before kicking him in the face and left him lying face first in the dirt, crying, twitching and clutching his broken arm.

"We have to get out of here before more soldiers show up," Cassie told Derek and a mellowed Omaria (who was satisfied to see her cousin's killer in such agony). "We have to decipher this thing," she pulled out the triangle from her back pocket and waved it to Derek and Omaria. "We have to get this thing deciphered if we want to figure out why Kamille got killed for this."

* * *

 **Kamille Al-Bashir**

 **(2016-April 19,, 2036)**

I feel bad for killing her off. She had so much potential.


	8. No Ticket

Just in the distance, Cassie spotted a small jeep that she assumed to belong to the organization of villains. "Run!" she snaps but is grabbed from behind just as Derek and Omaria runoff. A muscled arm was wrapped around her throat and squeezing the life out of her. "Brains versus brawns buddy!" She grabs the wrist of the muscled arm, and snaps it back, "Gonna feel that one in the morning!" The man choking her howls with a deep voice, and his entire arm is broken when Cassie breaks from his grip and twists it. She kicks the muscled soldier to the ground, before another soldier charges at her and actually manages to wrap his hands around her throat. She uppercuts him with both fists and knees him in the crotch, forcing him to release his grip on her just to clutch his aching groin. "Can't a girl get a break around here? We carry babies in our bellies and this is the thanks we get? What a sexist world we live in."

Cassie snapped around to race towards the jeep, with Derek already in the driver's seat and Omaria in the passenger seat. "Don't leave without me boys!" The keys must've been left in the vehicle because Derek managed to start up the vehicle as soon as he hopped in. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other on the clutch with his head turned back to spot Cassie. She sprints towards the vehicle just as Zaman and his small gang emerge from the pyramid entrance. "Purple people eaters are back and they look hungry."

Zaman takes out a pistol and shoots.

Cassie yelps in pain as if a large needle stabbed her in the spine. "What the what? Feels like Edward Scissorhands hands are in my back." Nevertheless, she kept on running and dived headfirst into the back of the jeep, Derek hammering the gas and the jeep taking off in an instant.

"Zaman, they got away!" Lachina states the obvious.

Zaman cocks his gun back and places it in the back of his pants. "I know. They can run, but they can't hide because you know what I shot her with?"

"GPS tracker," Hamed answered. "Why the GPS tracker when we have Omaria?"

Zaman snickered, putting a hand to his mouth just to suppress the sounds of his laugh. "Because we take no chances. We have to make sure we have tabs on Cassie at all times, no matter what. No. Matter. What."

Lachina was intrigued to the point of actually touching Zaman's shoulder affectionately. "What's the range for the GPS tracker?"

"As long as our satellite is still one hundred and fifty miles in the air," Hamed answered immediately, trying to win Lachina's attention. "We need to get that triangle back right now."

Zaman nodded in agreement. "I do believe that and in order for that to happen, we'll have to chase them down. Even if we fail, we will still have Cassie on satellite and there is virtually no way for her to escape; that GPS tracker is implanted deep in her skin. No goddamn way she can extract it herself."

"What if she gets suspicious?"

Zaman shrugged. "If it comes to that, and it most likely will, then it will be too late to remove the tracker from her bloodstream. The only way to remove the tracker from her bloodstream is for her to drain the blood with the GPS in it. She'll be weakened, so that'll mean she needs to get a donation of blood but I'm confident that everything will work out. We got to get a move on right now and chase them down." Zaman used his radio to call in several soldiers. "Oh yeah and Hamed, call in a cleanup team, we don't need Overlord bodies found near the Great Pyramid of Giza by reporters."

"That son of a bitch shot me," Cassie whined as she sat in an uncomfortable position in the backseat, the wind kicking in her face from driving fifty-five miles per hour into the desert. "That son of a bitch just shot me in my back."

"Are you bleeding?" Derek asked, but refused to look back at her. "If you are, then Omaria can help you out."

Cassie just shook her head. "No, I'm not bleeding, but it feels like there is some kind of a prick in my back." The needle in her back was ejected in a similar way that skin ejects splinters. The needle was sucked into space before Cassie realized it. "I hate getting needles. They are so pointy and they hurt so much! I'd rather get kicked in my ass then get shot'ed."

Just from behind, Cassie saw a huge truck coming up on them and was only a few feet away from hitting the spare tire on the jeep with its grille. "Guys, we have friends; it's those friends from the pyramid!"

The truck accelerated and struck the back of the jeep, knocking the spare tire off and Cassie off her balance. She yelps as she falls back, but the only thing that kept her from falling flat on the ground while going fifty-five miles an hour was the fact that her feet wrapped themselves around the seat she was sitting in. she was hanging by her feet basically.

"Where's Cassie?!" Omaria called out until she noticed the two feet. "Derek, go faster man!" She extends both of her arms out to try and grasp Cassie's feet, but an unexpected bump caused her to jolt in her seat, and Cassie to hang from only one leg.

"Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!" Cassie's head was only inches from the ground and the slightest bump was for sure to knock her off her last leg (literally), which meant that she had to act quickly. From her point of view, she was hanging upside down, but she could see the grille of the truck coming towards her. She lifts her body up slightly with a groan and grabs the grille with both hands just as a second bump made the jeep jumped.

Cassie howls as she lifts both feet up above her, climbing feet-first onto the hood and launching herself through the driver's window with her sneakers. The lower half of her body entered through the window with her upper half still outside. She kicks the passenger soldier in the face with just enough strength to send him flying out the door and off the truck, rolling down a hill with screams of pain. Cassie swings both of her legs like a sledgehammer towards the driver's face, knocking him in the teeth and causing him to swerve the truck in several directions, but Cassie's entire body was already inside and wrestling the driver over the wheel.

"My turn to drive buster." She elbows the driver in the throat and pushes him out the door and into the ground.

Cassie slams the door shut and shifts gears in the truck. The passenger door was still open, so there was a chance that whatever soldier that was in the back would sneak up on her through the passenger door, so now she has a reason to be cautious.

Cassie clutches the wheels at ten and two and grins at the fact that she is finally driving a vehicle and Derek gets no say in it. "How do you like me now D-Man?" Just in front of her was the jeep with Derek and Omaria, and the two of them exchanged glances at Cassie with awe.

The door beside her was jerked open and a soldier appeared. She had little time to react when the soldier grabbed her by the hair and pulled. Cassie grinded her teeth from the pain and swerve the vehicle in opposite directions several times, the soldier lets go of her hair to just hang onto the door before he fell. "No ticket," she quipped as she closed the door.

With the passenger door open, a soldier crawled from the side of the truck and into the passenger seat to strike at Cassie with a knife.

Cassie was much quicker and avoided being slashed by the knife by stomping on the brakes like a hammer, the vehicle coming to a stop instantly and the soldier ended up getting his head hit against the dashboard and kicked out, Cassie accelerating the vehicle once more.

* * *

In the back of the truck, only four soldiers remained and they were all witnesses to their soldier comrades being thrown out the truck. The truck came to a sudden stop, the four soldiers hitting the wall hard, and then the truck accelerated again, with one of the soldiers falling out the opening instantly.

Now only three soldiers remained and they were quickly devising a plan.

"What do we do man?" the private first class asked. "Whoever is driving is trying to kill us!"

"It's Cassie Drake," the corporal said. "She's hijacking the truck, knocking all of us out. We need to commandeer this truck immediately."

"Re-commandeer you mean," said the private. The corporal and private first class just stared at the private with malicious faces. "What's the plan?"

"We can't attack from the side because of what happened to the others, so we'll have to do something different. We're climbing on the top and ambush her from there." The corporal climbed out the opening and onto the roof, the others following his example.

The three of them stayed close together and dug their fingers deep into the fabric of the truck as they crawled forward.

Cassie waves at Derek and Omaria from the driver's seat. "Hey, someone call an Uber? Hey Derek man, I'm driving!"

She continued waving at them, and Omaria was waving back. _Wait a second,_ Cassie zoomed her eyes in to see what Omaria was waving at. _She's not waving at me._ It took her several seconds to realize what she was waving at. _She's waving at the roof._ She looks at the ceiling above her, imagining villains on top. "Shit, they're on the roof." She turns the wheels in opposite direction numerous times, looking like a drunk driver before she performs a half dozen three hundred and sixty degree turns, keeping her eyes shut so she doesn't get dizzy. "Free roller coaster!"

The three soldiers howled in terror, clutching the fabric of the truck for dear life because they were on the verge of being sucked off like a vacuum. This happened in the case of the corporal, who flew right off and into the sand below. Several more times, the swerving stopped and the vehicle moved in one direction, but the private first class was too dizzy to keep his grip on the fabric and fell off to the side. He didn't fall to the ground, but he fell to the still open passenger door and hung onto the door handle for dear life, his feet being dragged against the ground.

Cassie spots the hanging soldier. "Hey, there man? Are you just hanging out? Don't worry you monkey, I'll hand you a banana." The soldier reaches for his gun, eye-opening Cassie. She switches the vehicle to cruise control and crawls over to the passenger seat to kick at the hinges. The first one broke due to her, while the bottom hinge was being bent due to the soldier's weight. The soldier aimed his gun at her, and...she knocked it out his hand.

"Holy shit!" the private first class howled for his life, terror taking over as he sees his life flash before him. That was the last thing he saw before the door broke off and the private first class went rolling down a hill with the door still in his hand.

Cassie watched the private first class go rolling down a hill and saluted him. "Sorry kid, but as long as I'm around, you'll always be second b-"

Two feet from above connected to her chest and jaw and launched her backward. Cassie's quick reaction time and agility allowed her to grip the handle that vehicles usually have on the inside roof. Her feet swung off, but her right hand managed to keep a grip and pull her feet back onto the driver's seat.

The private took control of the wheel and smashed Cassie's feet away with his fists. Cassie felt pain coiling up in her shins and she used that pain to her advantage. She launched her feet back, swinging as if she was hanging from and bar with one hand and rocked the soles of her sneakers into the private's face. The private fell to the side and head-first out the passenger door. His neck snapped as soon as his forehead touched the ground while moving on a vehicle going fifty-five miles per hour. The remains of him fall out the vehicle, allowing Cassie to regain control of the truck.

"I'm tired of people not letting me drive," Cassie commented, more to herself than to the private. "I may be a woman, but I have a driver's license that I have to renew in a couple weeks. As soon as I am done here, I am going to tell Derek that his whole little idea of me driving is totally bogus and nothing to worry about."


	9. Charade

Kandahar, Afghanistan

The Next Day

It had been twenty-four hours since their adventure in the Great Pyramid of Giza. Cassie was trying to decipher the rest of the triangle but was unable to. That is until Omaria claimed that she had a friend in Afghanistan who studied extinct languages. Both Cassie and Derek were reluctant to do it, but they both decided to roll the dice and hop on the next plane to Afghanistan. On the plane ride there, Cassie had gotten into an argument with Omaria what the difference is between peanut M&Ms and peanut butter M&Ms. Derek stayed completely neutral and drank away his strawberry smoothie.

"Ah, the fresh smell of Afghanistan," Cassie commented as soon as she stepped on the plane. Derek was already sweating from this head. He had to admit that the place looked beautiful. "I know we have to get this thing deciphered, but there are still some things I want to do while I'm here."

Derek rubbed both of his eyes as if dust caught in them. "What are some of the things that you want to do?"

"Collect the kind of sand they have here, get a massage, and drink the raspberry sparkling water." Cassie rubbed her palms together as she began thinking of other things that she could do. "But we can do all of that stuff as soon as we are done deciphering this thing. Hey Omaria," she turned to her friend and continued, "What's your friend's name?"

Omaria said, "Mohammed Saab." She then began on explaining what kind of man he was, what kind of international college degrees he has, how many extinct languages he has actually read and how many extinct languages he can actually read. For some reason, the name Mohammed Saab sounded familiar to Cassie. She speculated that maybe her dad met Mohammed Saab in his years before her and told her about him in one of his stories. She remembered his Iram of the Pillars story, but not once did he mention a Mohammed Saab.

"What does he look like?" Cassie asked curiously. "The name sounds familiar, but I don't think I've met him before."

"He's tall," Omaria described. "He has an olive skin tone, gray eyes, a long beard, and he wears a pair of circle glasses."

Cassie shot Omaria a confused look. "He wears circle shaped glasses you mean?"

"Yeah," Omaria clarified. "Circle glasses."

Cassie nodded and put a hand on her forehead. "How long has it been since you've made direct or indirect contact with him?"

"Three months since I've had direct contact with him," she answered sarcastically. "And three weeks since I've had indirect contact with him. Well actually, the last time I've had indirect contact with him was yesterday when I told him about you guys. He's agreed to decipher this triangle object for us after his lecture was done."

"He's a professor?" Cassie smirked a bit. "They have lectures in museums?" Now she was confused. "How can museum have lectures, they aren't supposed to be places where you go to school learn, only fun learn." Cassie walked down the runway of the airport before Omaria could say anything more.

As they made it to the airport terminal, several security guards speaking different languages stopped in front of them and hold out their hands, indicating that they wanted to see their IDs and passports. When Cassie's passport and ID were authenticated, she was allowed to move forward, but Omaria and Derek were having a lot of trouble trying to look for their ID and passports. Cassie watched in amusement as the two guards searched Derek and Omaria after failing to pull out their IDs and passports in time. She was laughing hard when they were taken to another room to be stripped search. An hour later, they came out of the security office, groaning in pain and walking with stiffened bodies. She could only imagine what happened to them.

 _A doctor put on a latex glove, that's what,_ she thought. "Hello there you two," she grinned. "You guys look stiff, did you guys have a rough night or something?"

Derek forced a smile on his blushing red face. "This security officer told us both to bend over. Never again am I allowing that to happen to me. No way in hell." He rubs his rear end. "My ass still hurts."

"I'm used to it," Omaira said, putting her hands in her pockets.

"Okay then," Cassie said as she moved forward. "While you guys were being violated, security asked me if they could see my triangle object. I have to head to security checkpoint if I want to pick it up. You guys can stay here and gather the rest of our suitcases."

"I'll go with you," Derek insisted. "I want to help just in case. Actually, I want to play the role of your bodyguard."

Cassie was actually offended. _Just because I'm a woman, I automatically need a bodyguard?_

"You might look like a powerful person," he explained. "If those security guys who violated me see that you have a bodyguard, then they will assume that you are a VIP and will give us special treatment. We might get free cookies and free airplane rides for the next thirty-six months."

Cassie thought about it and shrugged. "Why not D-Man? After all, you will be guarding my _body_."

Derek's heartbeat suddenly increased. "Yes, I will be…"

"Let's go my royal Queen's guard." Cassie grabbed him by the hand and led him forward. Omaria stayed behind to start unloading their suitcases from the moving conveyor belt.

Cassie and Derek ran through a small crowd of foreigners to make it to a big desk that was labeled something in Arabic, but it translated as 'Checkpoint' so Cassie knew right off the Lucille bat that was their destination. Cassie stopped just short of the desk, fixed her hair with a comb that she was allowed to keep on the plane ride and checked to make sure her contact lenses were in properly. She rubbed her hands down her shirt to buff out the wrinkles and took a puff in of air. "Let's do this Cassie," she said aloud to herself.

Once she was at the desk, she put her forearms and elbows on and flashed the female security officer with hair dyed a scarlet red color a smile. "Hi," she says in Arabic. "I'm Cassie Drake, legendary treasure hunter."

The female officer just stared at her with a blank look on her face. "Never heard of you," she said in English.

"What?" Cassie exclaimed in English. "You do not know of Cassie Drake, the next Lara Croft, and Indiana Jones?"

The female officer once again shook her head. "You really take me for a fool. I didn't say I don't know you, I said I never heard of you."

Cassie was silent while Derek was snickering behind her. Cassie's face cracked with a smile. "You know what, I bet no one in here has heard of you. At least I'm not security officer sitting behind a desk, eating twelve doughnuts a day and gaining five pounds every day for the next twenty-nine days. Or sixty-one days."

"What do you want you American?"

Cassie laced her fingers together and tried to sound as professional as possible when she said, "I came here for my triangular sculpture." She then began telling a false story about how she made that from several pieces of debris from the Great Pyramid of Giza. "It took me seventy-two hours to make that little thing. Well actually, I was lying. My bodyguard over here," she gestured with her head, "Derek Lowell, made it for me. We came here to Afghanistan to put it on display at the Kandahar Provincial Museum."

"As much as I would like to help you, a security officer already came and placed it in the lost and found."

Cassie's mouth went agape. "What the hell, I just claimed it. Where is this bastard who stole my sculpture? I would like to have a word to him about how his mother never taught him any manners. I demand to know his name…" she narrowed her eyes as she studied her nametag, "Lachina, that's an unusual name."

"His name is Hamed Najam. I can call him up." The scarlet-haired colored officer picks up a nearby phone and dials in a few numbers. "This is Lachina, and I am calling for Officer Najam. We have a girl who claims to have found the lost item."

* * *

But sir," Hamed argued with Zaman. "We have the object, we can find the Tomb ourselves."

Zaman shook his head. "NO Hamed, don't you understand? We can't read this thing. It's going back. Cassie and Derek are taking it to a place where it actually can be deciphered. We'll put a radio on Omaria and then we'll record what the good friend says."

Hamed did not understand, and he was even contemplating on giving it back, but he decided to follow orders and give it back. "What did Omaria say the good doctor's name was?"

"Mohammed Saab," he said rather sarcastically. "Either way, after today, he is going to die so it won't matter."

"What if we need him to translate more languages?" Hamed asked.

"We'll just find another Mohammed Saab." Zaman patted Hamed on the back and put on a security uniform that he stole from a guard they murdered. "I'll be playing you, so give me the triangle?"

Once Zaman was handed the object, he signaled for one of his soldiers to come near him. He started applying makeup to Zaman's face that makes him look like a different person entirely. His voice, he would have to change himself. "Gotta look my best for when I see Cassie again." The soldier applying makeup to Zaman took out a small name tag and wrote in Arabic, 'Hamed Najam' before placing it on the shirt's left chest plate. "Gotta dress to look your best."

"Be careful out there," the makeup soldier said. "Remember what Cassie did to Salaam?"

Zaman gave him a duh look. "Of course I do, she snapped his bone like an alligator with no muscle."

Zaman stepped out of the supply closet that they've been hiding in and walked towards the security checkpoint. Normally, he would've been nervous putting on a charade in front of everybody with citizens filming and whatnot, but he was excited. He was excited about the fact that Cassie was going to be secretly doing Overlord a favor. _The Overlord leader would be so proud of my cunningness._

* * *

Cassie kept tapping on the desk in a rhythmic way until Zaman disguised as 'Hamed Najam'. Cassie first looked at the man with a look of surprise, then the facial expression faded into nothing. Hamed Najam looked more ugly than she thought. He had a long face, a flat nose, bushy eyebrows, blue eyes, and his chin was long and chiseled.

"I am sorry for the inconvenience ma'am," Zaman said in English. "We are terribly sorry for what we've done."

Cassie took the object from Zaman and grinned. "I'll be talking about how you lost my luggage." Her joke actually made Zaman laugh a little bit. _My bullshit detector is actually going off, what's the F is wrong with this guy?_ "Well, thank you for returning what's mine and I guess we'll be shipping off."

"What's a foreigner like you doing in our country?" Zaman asked eagerly.

"I'm going to look for something pretty big. You see, I am here to drop this thing off at this museum and then I'm going back home to Mexico to look for the lost city of Aztlan. You know your Aztec mythology?"

"No," Zaman answered. "I know all about the Egyptians though. I hope you do well in your search for Aztlan or whatever it is called."

"No problem Mr. Najam." Cassie shook his hand and left with Derek to regroup with Omaria. "That son of a bitch thinks he can fool me," she uttered under hear breath that only she could hear. "That stupid son of a bitch thinks he can fool me?"


	10. Payphone

Cassie, Derek, and Omaria walked out of the airport, having obtained their luggage and outsides into the heated sun environment once more, not that Omaria mind considering that she is a Cairo native. She may have been a Cairo native, but she was no Afghanistan native. Omaria was waving her hands like a drunk, trying to flag down a taxi while Cassie was several feet behind her and whispering something to Derek. She whispered so softly, only Derek himself could hear it.

"Derek man, I think we are being followed." Her whispering statement made Derek look back through the door they just passed and was ended up slapped in the back just so he wouldn't look. "What's the first thing you should never do when I whispering something to you?" He was about to answer until she answered for him. "Never look back." Derek shrugged and apologized. "I forgive you."

"What are you talking about Cass?" Derek asked in a soft whispering voice that only she could hear, his concern obvious in both his voice and facial expression. "Who is following us?"

"Dude from the pyramid." She then went on to explain her reasoning. "Remember in high school, when I was in that play?"

Derek gave a cheesy smile, making Cassie cringe slightly. "You were in the play, you did _something_ in the play. You put makeup and face paint on the actors."

Cassie nodded, giving an annoyed smile at him, which was her way of saying 'shut up'. "Yes, that is the point; I put makeup and face paint on actors and I do one hell of a job at it. I'm saying because of my experience in high school, I know exactly when people have real and fake faces. That dude who gave me this you-know-what had some kind of special effects makeup. I love doing special effects makeup."

Omaria was still waving her arms around like a drunk, unsuccessfully flagging down multiple taxis that came across. Cassie actually had a reason as to why no taxis were stopping: Omaria was wavering her hands around _like_ a drunk.

"So dude from pyramid gives you the triangle thing, that could only mean one thing."

She nodded. "They want us to decipher it, they want us to lead them to Mohammed Saab so he can tell us what this is, then they would ambush and kill us, and go wherever this little trinket leads them to." She looks down at the ground, biting her lower lip in anxiety. "We can't get this little thing to Mohammed Saab, we can't do that. We can't endanger innocent people. We are gonna have to decipher this trinket or whatever it is all by ourselves."

Derek stares off into space after hearing what she said. _We have to decipher it all by ourselves. We have to decipher it all by ourselves. We have to decipher it all by ourselves…_ "I know somebody who has no fame, no kind of recognition from anybody other than me. I know this person more than anybody else on the planet-aside from his mom-and I know he can be trusted." The way how he crossed his hands over his chest just showed how serious he was, and Cassie was actually intrigued.

"Really, what's his name?" Cassie tried really hard thinking of who this possible person was. Derek knew a lot of people.

Derek put a hand on her shoulder, offering her a smile. "Niko."

Cassie narrowed her eyes as if he spoke in a different language to her. "Niko...Niko...Niko…why does that name sound so familiar?"

Derek's jaw dropped in huge disbelief. "He's my cousin, you've met him four times."

Cassie just grinned and patted his shoulders. "Yeah, and Jada Hzujak is my godaunt...cause you know how she's Sully's goddaughter and would be kinda Dad's godsister or something."

"Yeah I know, and I remember Jada. The real question here is do you remember Niko?"

"Course I remember Niko." Her words were genuine this time.

She remembers first meeting Niko at Derek's fourteenth birthday party. He was about two years younger than Derek, but he was much more energetic, but he often kept to himself. He usually sat in his own corner, barely talking to other people. Cassie had the good heart to actually invite him over to a table that Derek, two friends named Joshua and Erkin, and herself sat at. He was still the quietest one of the group, but he managed to crack a few jokes occasionally and actually make Cassie chuckle a bit. She laughed her ass off hysterically when he burned his throat from drinking vodka, mistaking it for Sprite. _Never leave your drinks out on the table Derek's mother and father._

The last time she ever saw or heard of Niko was their high school graduation. Cassie and Derek graduated at the age of seventeen from highschool, but Niko still had to serve another three years in school, but as soon as Cassie was free from school, she said goodbye to Niko and that was the last time he spoke or heard of him in the last five years.

Derek had still kept in touch with Niko, but he failed to mention what Niko's current occupation was.

"We should go see Niko so he can decipher this thing for us. He has the same occupation as Mohammed Saab, but lacks the fame and Wikipedia page so he should be under the radar for these scary guys who killed Kamille."

Derek's explicación made Cassie smile a bit, but only for a bit. "You said we should go see Niko, does that mean he's here in this-"

Derek answered "Yeah" immediately. "I looked up on his Facebook page and he says and I quote," he slaps his chest and clears his throat. " _I am enjoying my vacay in the Middle 'Easten' country called Afghanistan_. Since I'm part of his friend page, I know where he's staying. I can easily give him a quick call right now."

"I recommend using a payphone, not a cellphone," Cassie suggested. "Those boom raider assholes might be tracking us via cell phones, so we're gonna have to dispose of them or not use them at all. Or option three is we disable the SD card."

Omaria finally got a taxi to stop. "Guys, let's go." She climbed into the passenger seat as soon as she called out to them. The duo quickly rushed to the taxi and dived into the back. Cassie could not bear the smell of the inside because it smelt like twelve men's feet. _And I though the men's room smelled repulsive._

"So where are we going?" the taxi driver asked. Cassie studied him for a second. He was a tall man with aging gray hair and sideburns with a tannish skin tone and a beanie over his head. She narrowed her eyes and told the taxi driver their destination.

"Kandahar Park," she answered. She whispered to Derek that national parks have payphones from just about every era. Omaria was initially confused at the sudden change in address and was about to question her friend, but Cassie beat her to the chase by telling her to pay the taxi driver in Arabic currency. She obeyed her friend and paid the driver.

The taxi driver drove them all the way to Kandahar Park. Cassie and Omaria stayed in the car while Derek hopped out to do a little search for the nearest payphone. Omaria had paid him in three dollars worth of currency, but the money wasn't the problem. The fact that the Kandahar Park was big was a problem because there was only one path that people had to take when they walk and no cars were allowed to drive in. So they had to wait for Derek to find a phone, call Niko, and then find his way back to the car. Cassie already sat back in her seat, Omaria curling up in the passenger seat, and the taxi driver playing music...which was ironically European.

Derek did manage to find a payphone. He took the phone, placed it on his shoulder, and dug through the bag of coins that Omaria gave to him. The required coins needed to make a phone call were the Arabic equivalent of US of A quarters. When he asked for a bag of coins, he should've asked Omaria to be specific in which coins were which. So, he put in one coin of each. He dialed not Niko's phone number, but the house phone of the place that Niko was staying at.

"Hello?" Derek spoke softly.

"Hello," a voice on the other end said. Derek recognized that voice, despite not hearing it in a while and it warmed his heart to be hearing from his cousin again.

"Niko man. My cousin man, it is so good to finally get to chat with you once again. I wanted to tell you how much I miss you. I really have, but listen to me Niko, I really need your help."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's kinda hard to explain." He leaned against the payphone. His forehead sizzled from the heat, which he ignored. "Niko, I need you to do something that could actually reshape the world. I need you to do something that may decide what fate holds in store for humanity."

"Now you're kinda freaking me out cuz."

Derek detected the worry in his cousin's voice and reassured him that it was not _that_ big...he didn't need to know that. "Well, maybe humanity doesn't need to be affected by this, but it's very important. You see...me and my friend Cassie-"

"Cassie?"

"Yes, Cassie. I said Cassie, Niko. Listen, me and Cassie went exploring in this tomb and we discovered something unknown, yet extraordinary. It's this triangular object that a friend of ours died for. She was shot in the back by a strange man working for some strange company, and we have to know what is on this thing. If an unknown organization working for no known person wants this, then we have to stay _seventeen_ steps ahead of them. You study extinct languages, so your skills are incredibly crucial in this possible discovery of a lifetime."

"The hell man? Okay come over to my place and I'll have a look at this triangle object or whatever. You know where I live right?"

"You mean 'staying' and it's 245 W. Cedar Street in Kandahar right?"

"No, actually I'm staying at the Private Plaza hotel. Room 17Z. If my cousin is coming over, then I better clean up. I can't wait to see you again Derek."

That comment brought a smile to Derek's face. "Yeah, me either. I'll see you there Niko. Love you man." He hung up.


	11. Elevator

The Private Plaza was definitely a bigger place than Cassie ever though. The Private Plaza was a five-star hotel. In the front of the building, was a big water fountain shooting waters more than thirty feet into the air. It reminded her of Las Vegas because the waters were being shot into the air in a weird pattern to create a show. Cassie could not resist, so she stepped up to the fountain, took out an American US quarter, closed her eyes and made a wish. She mouthed what her wish was before flipping the coin into the falcon.

Derek came up to her and placed a hand on her right shoulder gently. "So C-Dog, what did you wish for?" His curiosity only got him hit in the back of the head playfully. "Please, I'm curious as to what you wished for. Please, can you tell me? Please?"

Cassie kept on shaking her head. "No, I can't otherwise it won't come true." She just turned away and walked around the fountain. She walked up to the front door of the Private Plaza hotel and looked up. There was a total of sixty-seven floors. This place looked kinda bigger than the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Man, she had a good time at the hotel. That was when she spent a romantic night with a certain boy named Derek, and by romantic she meant that they stayed up all night, eating nothing but chocolate and playing their own pretend gamble games. No love making happened between the two, but Cassie's view of a romantic night is Derek going out of his way to buy her a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

"This place is really big; it must have like a hundred floors or so." Cassie's mouth dropped, licking the inside of her cheeks and lips. "Niko lives here? What the hell man? How can he afford a place like this?"

Derek went on to give a lecture on how Niko studies extinct languages for a living, which Cassie already knew so she rolled her eyes at him. She was not asking a serious question, but a rhetorical question and Derek should've known that. He did know this and answered the question sarcastically.

"Derek man, we should get inside and look for his room." Cassie walked through the doors and held it open for Derek and Omaria. "I'm heading to the elevators, you guys give Niko a buzz that we are here."

"I'll do that," Derek said. "Omaria can translate my sentence to the bellhop for me or something."

Omaria just shrugged. "Sure, why not? I'll just be the translator that is only useful for translating. Let's just get inside and buzz your cousin."

Cassie walked off to the direction in the right while Derek and Omaria walked forward. Derek made it to the front desk and laid his elbows flat down on the desk. He smiled at the bellhop, a young man with a neatly pressed red uniform. He spoke in English, then Omaria translated.

"Hello, I am the cousin of Niko Lowell. I would like you to give him a heads up that I am here."

Omaria translated and the bellhop nodded. He reached over, grabbed a phone, and spoke in Afghanistan native language. Omaria translated to Derek, saying that the bellhop called Niko's apartment room and that his cousin was on his way up. Derek and Omaria left before the bellhop hung up the phone.

Cassie was standing in the hallway filled with elevators. She pressed the call button numerous times, hammering her index finger into the button, burying it into the wall eventually that lit up a yellow-like color.

The arrow pointing upwards lit up brightly, and the doors opened with a ding. She climbed in, waited for Derek and Omaria, but the elevator filled up with four more people, all wearing different sorts of clothes ranging from jeans to khakis, to muscle shirts, to flannels. They wasted no time and pressed the button leading to the fifteenth floor.

Cassie cleared her throat and laced her fingers together in front of her. If there was one thing that Cassie feared, it was crowded elevators. No matter where she was, under no matter what kind of circumstances, she was terrified of crowded elevators. She was always afraid that the people surrounding her would pull out a knife, stab her to death numerous times, and then sell her body on the black market, where it would be bought by necrophiliac cannibals and then dumped into the Atlantic ocean and left to rot in the deepest trench in the world, only to be eaten by a long-lost Megalodon.

She inhaled deeply and hoped that Derek and Omaria would somehow squeeze their way in, but she knew it was impractical because these people brought large suitcases with them, thus making it impossible for them to make room. She felt her heartbeat increase as the elevator doors closed, leaving her inside the elevator with the four strangers. She could feel a lump in her throat as she gulped.

She did not get a good look at any of their faces, thus making them unrecognizable to her. She knew that she hasn't seen them before, but they remind her of those thugs in the pyramid. There was that vibe that made the hairs on her forearms jump up, acting like her spider senses. She kept her eyes on the four men, only occasionally looking at the light near the buttons. She was hoping that she would get to the seventeenth floor quickly. Something hits her to the point where she widens her eyes: she forgot to push the button to the seventeenth floor. Her right hand lunged forward, her index finger slamming into the seventeenth-floor button. As she retracted her hand, her wrist brushed against the man's wrist in front of her. She snatched her hand back, reacting as if she touched lava, and just stared at the napes of the four men.

The elevator doors opened with a ding. The four men stepped out, leaving Cassie all by herself in the elevator. She was traumatized (kinda), and let out a deep sigh of relief. As soon as she was out of this elevator, she was going to buy a chocolate milkshake, and drink like there's no tomorrow. The elevator ascends two more floors and she rushes out, almost bumping into a child with her knee in the process. She moves around the child and rushes down the hallway, sprinting as if her life counted on it. Her eyes moved from left to right, searching for 17Z on the doors. She dodged several people like a football player, not wanting to hurt any innocent people. Then again, the people who attacked her were unlike anybody she has ever encountered, so she was completely unknown who was innocent in this hotel. Either way, she knows that those four people in the elevator were part of that rogue group which meant that they must have intercepted Derek's phone call to Niko, which equals Niko being in danger.

 _End of the line,_ she thought as she reached the very end of the hallway and saw a room that read 17Z on the door. She knocks onto the door numerous times, not stopping for anything. She knew that her constant knocking on the door would eventually lead to her knuckles turning red and sore, but constant knocking would start getting annoying for the people inside so they would want to answer the door quickly.

The knocking came to an end, the door opened, and stood in front of her, was a young man with wavy brown hair, hazel-brown eyes, and an oval shaped head. He looked to be like a younger version of Derek, which made sense because Niko is the son of Derek's uncle from his father's side.

Cassie gave a huff of air and smiled. She extended her arms out and embraced Niko in a bear hug. He returned the gesture.

"Hey there Niko, son of Hades…"

Niko snorted. "I see you still like calling me that. You got up here pretty quickly. Where's Derek?"

"They're still down there, but they should be coming up right now. Him and Omaria."

"Omaria as well?" Niko invited Cassie inside. His room consisted of a single bed with white sheets, one window with the curtains opened showing the great view, and the walls painted a tan color. "Make yourself at home."

Cassie went to the fridge, pulled out a carton of milk, and a chocolate Hershey's bar, went to the counter, turning on the blender, and making herself a chocolate milkshake.

"You just took my Hershey's bar without asking," Niko scolded. "That was my last piece of candy."

Cassie looked at him over her shoulder, glaring at him. "I'm sorry. But when you are trapped in a crowded elevator and your heart is racing, and you develop a sudden craving for chocolate, then don't come scolding me for stealing your last chocolate."

She took a gulp of her milkshake.


	12. The Mad Hatter

Cassie looked out the window as she drank from her chocolate milkshake. The view from this story was amazing. Niko was sitting on the bed and reading from the triangle. He sat on the edge of his bed, sinking into the bed a little, and just read aloud as if she weren't in the room with him.

 _Cleopatra has ordered me to do the unthinkable. I have been ordered to leave the country. Last year, we held our own against the battle, and Cleopatra became Queen, but now she senses something that I don't. Someone is targeting her, planning to kill her and take over as ruler. Cleopatra is my lover and I cannot go against her orders. Cleopatra has ordered me to leave the country and set up a safe haven in some foreign land. I will take five hundred loyal warriors with me. Cleopatra wants to stay behind and deal with the Octavian threat and I am the last resort in case another war breaks out. I know we won't lose Alexandria, but anything can happen. I am writing on this so if I die in my march, then someone can continue for me._

"Who wrote that?" Cassie asked.

"It's not signed, but there is another portion on here written much later." Niko flips the triangle over and begins reading once more.

 _I now know what I must do. I have been deceived by my lover and she wants me dead. This entire time, I was used just because of my massive army. Cleopatra never loved me and I am going to kill her for that. I will kill her and Antony for causing me such anguish. They'll see when I give the location of her safe that I built to Octavian. He wants to kill her and take over, well I have no problem with that. This will be the last time in history where people like me are deceived by people like Cleopatra. Octavian, in case I die on my march back to Egypt and you find this, I want you to know where Cleopatra's tomb is hidden. I won't tell you where, but I will lay out enough clues and pointers so you can find it yourself. In a country run by the Indus Valley, there is a stockpile of currency with Cleopatra's safe haven location minted on them. Find the Indus Valley civilization, and you will find the coins. Find the coins, and you will find the tomb. Just make sure that she is slaughtered one way or another._

"And it's signed by someone named Assim." Niko leaned back, sinking slightly into the bed. He rubbed his face a couple times, unable to comprehend what just happened to him. He turned to Cassie and asked her for some clarification.

"I can see, Niko that you are a linguistics and not an archaeologist so I will help you. You see, back in Ancient Egypt, Cleopatra and her husband Antony lost the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. One year later, during the Battle of Alexandria, during the time when this guy Assim was presumably writing, Cleopatra and Antony lost their lives. Octavian was the one who offered their very last refuge."

Cassie looked down at her feet as something finally clicked inside her mind. Those guys in the pyramid, whatever kind of organization they are or work for, is bad news and if they want something like this, then there must be something devious behind this. Cleopatra and Assim apparently had an affair and when he discovered that Cleopatra was the lover to Antony, he snapped and sold out Cleopatra's last safe haven locations.

"The lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra," she says quietly. "Those bastards at the pyramid are looking for the lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra." None of it made sense right now, but she had a feeling that it would eventually make sense. Cassie grabbed the triangle from Niko and examined it herself. He was reading off the writing that this guy left, but she was looking at the symbols on the inside of the triangle. These symbols are important, so she wrote down everything that Niko said into her journal.

"Am I done?" he asked Cassie. "Where's Derek, I haven't seen him in a long time?"

Cassie looked at the front door and wondered where the hell Derek and Omaria were. She knew for a fact that Derek and Omaria weren't dilly-dallying because that is uncharacteristic of them.

"Niko, hand me my phone and I'll call them." She pointed to the dresser, where she placed her cell before making her chocolate milkshake. Niko jumped from the bed, grabbed the phone and launched it towards her. She caught it with one hand and dialed Derek's number. Those assholes from the pyramid could have been hearing, so she had to make her phone conversation as brief and vague as possible.

"Hello?"

"Locus (Latin: Location)?"

"Bibliotheca (Latin: Library)."

"Quare (Why)?"

"Hostium (The enemy)."

Cassie hung up and her heart dropped to her stomach. The enemies had caught up to them and they had Derek and Omaria in the library. Cassie rubbed a hand through her dirty blonde hair and looked up at Niko. "Where's the library?"

"It's at the bottom, lobby area, but it's closed today because it's Sunday."

Cassie rubbed her eyes before placing the triangle in Niko's hands. "You have to get as far away as you can from here. Derek and Omaria are down in the library and they've been taken by the enemy. I'm going to save them because they want me."

"What? Why are you giving me this then?"

"You're not going to hold onto it, you're going to throw it down the incinerator. Whatever it is that these guys are after is not worth it. Even if it's a piece of Egyptian history, none of it is worth it. Run to the nearest laundry room, put the triangle in a washing machine, set it to the highest temperature possible and melt it down to scraps."

"And then what?"

"Run as far away from this hotel as possible. These guys attacked me and Derek in the pyramid, they are not worth it. They are not worth your life, and they are most certainly not worth Derek and Omaria's life."

"Okay, but you have to promise me that Derek will come out of this alive."

"I promise Niko." Cassie ran out the door and towards the elevators once more. Niko ran off to another elevator.

* * *

Cassie was at the very bottom of the Private Plaza and walking casually around the lobby. She looks from her left to find zero enemies and then looked to her right to see zero enemies. She looked behind her, same results. Then she looked all around and found that there was nobody in the lobby. Now she was suspicious of something because the Private Plaza is a five-star hotel or something and people don't just disappear.

She walks across the hallways, looking at the clean carpet at her feet before shortly paying close attention to what was ahead in front of her. She finally came across a person in a red suit with black pants. He approached her and caught her off guard by stabbing a syringe into her dominant vein. Cassie punches the man and snaps his arm. She shoves him as hard as she could and he smashed into a vase painfully and shattered it. She looked at her dominant vein and rubbed it. Whatever that bastard injecting into her was once again taking effect. Now she was starting to see things and her hearing was fading away. The world around her getting blurry and vision getting darker and darker.

She staggered forward and tripped on something in front of her. She fell onto her stomach but felt no pain. It was like her pain receptors were disabled for the time being until the drugs in her system wore off.

"Man, did they try to force meth down me?" Her eyes widen. Her hearing was back and her vision was clearing up. In less than ten seconds, she was feeling normal again...except for one thing. She covers her mouth and sits up on her knees with her back straight. Like a volcano getting ready to erupt, she vomited painfully onto the carpet. She could feel throw up in her mouth and nasal cavities. Whatever that drug was, it forced her to vomit. "Oh man," she groaned upon seeing the vomit in front of her. The throw up was a brownish color mixed with yellow-green that stained the red carpet. "That's the chocolate from my milkshake…"

She pushes herself to her feet and stands with a stiffened back. Whatever was in that syringe had worn off completely and she felt as if nothing had ever happened to her. She turns to the man in the red suit. He was clutching his arm in pain but was not moaning or groaning in pain. She stomps on his leg and threatens to break it.

"What did you give me? Was it supposed to be a poison or something?"

The man raised his good hand in surrender as he pressed his back against the wall. "Not used for poison, that would be cruel. Those kinds of method are just too brutal." The man's voice hinted at him being nonchalant in situations like this. "It was simply used as a cleaner. Sorry, it's not drugs, I can see that you're eager."

"What did you guys do to Derek? Don't lie to me because I know you work for the dickheads that ambushed me and Derek in the pyramid."

"Want to find your friend, that's fine with me. In the library, is he unharmed, we shall see."

"Quit with the rhymes Mad Hatter!" Cassie kicked him in the gut.

"You broke my arm, and this lovely vase you just shattered." His smile widened. "Go find Derek and then we shall see if Zaman has enough bullets for three."

"You're coming with me as a hostage." Cassie dragged him by his broken arm, he muttered curses as a substitute for groaning in pain.

"Curious to see what was in your arm, I'll give you a hint. It was something to rid you of the GPS tracker."

"If you don't stop with the rhymes, I'm going to make your brains splatter." She puts a hand to her forehead, struck in disbelief that she just made a rhyme.

Cassie kept on walking, passing through a glass door leading to the library. In the center of the room, sitting at a large table was Farid Zaman, Derek Lowell, Omaria Al-Bashir, Hamed Najam, Harkov Mayakovsky, and Lachina Onassis. One of the soldiers behind Zaman moved forward and pulled an empty chair out.

Zaman laced his fingers together and smiled. "Hello, Cassie Drake. Please have a seat."


	13. Cassie Meets Overlord

A soldier snuck on Cassie beside her and pressed the barrel of a pistol to her temple. Cassie blinked in surprise upon feeling the impact of the gun against her temple. She considered disarming him until she noticed that Derek and Omaria were handcuffed to the table with gags in their mouth and soldiers with unknown faces standing over them.

Cassie was forced to sit down in the chair, but the glare she gave Zaman, she did on her own. The Mad Hatter thug was escorted by another soldier out of the room to get his broken arm tended to. Cassie scanned the ugly faces in the room, counting up to a total of twenty soldiers in the room, her group being largely outnumbered and outgunned. _Like it hasn't happened before._

She felt the barrel of a pistol being forced into her spine, making her cringe and hiss like a snake. Cassie had no intention of being friendly to these guys, but she had no intention of showing that she was nonchalant. _If I act all comical, then they won't take me to be that big of a threat._ Once the barrel was subtracted several inches from her spine, she whined her arms back like Popeye. "You're no chiropractor, my back only feels Old Man Jenkins.

She gazed at Derek and Omaria. The poor souls had knives to their throats and the soldiers holding the knives had balaclavas on. _If someone is going to kill me or my friends, then I want to see their face. No freaking thugs hiding behind a mask, no snipers, no villains hiding behind windows that obscure your face._

Zaman readjusted himself in his seat before grabbing his hands and lacing his fingers together. "So, I see our boy with the broken arm gave you the cleaner." Zaman smiled as he put his leather boots on the table. "If you're curious, that serum he gave you was to clean out the liquid GPS tracker in your system. We would've kept the tracker inside your bloodstream longer until the doctors who invented it warned us of certain side-effects it contains if it remains dormant within the bloodstream for more than twenty-four hours." Zaman shrugged and licked his lips.

Cassie was having a hard time believing that these people working for an unknown rogue organization, would save her life from internal bleeding or internal trauma of some kind. She has encountered low-life petty thugs before, but none of them had the audacity to save her life unless they announced that they were going to kill her afterward. "Who are you guys? A big group like you with all these resources must have some kind of name." She gasps. "You're not the Illuminati are ya? I told you, Derek, that the Illuminati would reveal themselves twenty years in the future. You owe me eight dollars."

Zaman balled his fist up, rage slowly reaching his peak but nevertheless answered. "My name is Farid Zaman. We...are...Overlord."

Cassie chuckled at the sick thoughts in her head. "Overload, what did you overload on?"

"Overlord is a massive organization with countless numbers of people from all over the globe. We all have one goal: world domination."

Cassie's jaw dropped, drooling. "World domination? Why would you want to rule the world? I thought politicians were bad, but you guys are even more ugly."

"The world is at war with itself. Think of all the war, poverty, economic collapses, and chaos we bring to it on an everyday basis. The planet is going to crumble, but we're going to keep it alive a little while longer so we can make some corrections. We're going to show the world that if they chose to live like this, then it is their fault that Overlord performed dictatorship over the earth once we take it over. We seek to rule the world not through conventional means, but through god-like means."

"I couldn't agree more with your views on the governments being bad, but if you take over the world with only one government, you could be considered Nazis. Modern day Nazis. You want to rule the world so you can take over?"

"Correct."

"You're nothing but a bunch of assholes."

"Sticks and stones as you Americans say. Hand over the triangle."

Cassie looked from her left then to her right, as if she was lost. "I have no idea what triangular object you are referring to." She then gazed upon the only woman in the group. Lachina put a finger to her ear and spoke in a different language. She rises from her chair and paces around the room. A while later, she moved towards Zaman and whispered into his ear, his facial expression remained unchanged.

"That explains it," Zaman said to Lachina. "Send an S&R team."

"Right away sir."

Cassie watched as Lachina left before turning to Derek. His mouth was gagged, making him unable to mouth any words in secret, but not blink in Morse code.

Cassie: Your cousin has the triangle.

Derek: Good to know, where is he?  
Cassie: Running to the laundry room to burn it.

Derek: No.

Cassie: Why not?

Derek: The woman intercepted Niko's current location. If they get Niko, then they'll get the triangle.

Zaman noticed the two blinking in Morse code and began speaking. "Sharing secrets or something?"

Cassie turned to Zaman and glared, which turned into a look of confusion. "Why do you look so familiar? And why has your face been altered in a way?"

Farid Zaman was suddenly nervous. He knew he could not show his true face to Cassie, which is why he had plastic surgery on his face just several hours ago. If Cassie found out what he actually looked like, then it would be hell for him. "Does it really matter? None of us use our real faces."

"Why do you want the triangle? You obviously know something that we don't know, so tell us."

Zaman shrugged again but did not answer her question. "That is classified. We know that the triangle leads to the tomb of an ancient ruler like Cleopatra, we know that the tomb is located in a different country. We are just trying to figure out where. We know what we are looking for though when we get there."

"How did you find out about the Cleopatra in the first place? Are you some kind of telepathic mutant?"

Zaman shook his head in a nonchalant way. "Nope, Lachina captured Niko in the laundry room and is telling me every single thing that you told him."

Cassie's rage reached her peak and she lunged for Zaman over the table. Harkov and Hamed grabbed her by the neck and hair and forced her back down onto the ground. Derek and Omaria hysterically began struggling in their bonds. Derek howled through his gag and lost his balance and the chair went falling over the side.

Harkov and Hamed pinned Cassie beneath their feet. Cassie groaned in pain from feeling the soldiers' knees dig into her back, paralyzing her. She still had enough strength within her to speak through."Hey Zaman, I swear you harm any one of my friends, and it won't be chaos and economic collapse you're gonna have to worry about."

In a dramatic way, Zaman walked over towards Cassie and crouched down beside her. "We have a challenge for you. Lachina just informed me that you wrote down notes of coins that act as a key to the triangle." He puts his hands on Cassie's waist and touches the back of her jeans in the most non-sexual way possible. He reached into her back pocket and removed the journal. His eyes widen and a smile is brought to his face.

"Hey, is this any way to treat women?" Cassie asked. "I'll file you for sexual assault."

Zaman shrugged off her remark and opened her journal. "Overlord would never commit such heinous acts." He flipped through numerous pages until he stopped on one with the triangle. "The Indus Valley Civilization is where the coins are hidden." He turns to one of the soldiers native to Pakistan. "You were an archaeologist on the Indus Valley Civilization, do you know what coins these are referring to?"

"Yes, sir. There is a whole set of ancient mysterious coins displayed at the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Complicated things, however, the coins are stored in a storage locker. So it's not on display, just hidden away."

"Thanks, T. Listen up Cassie Drake, this is the challenge we would like to give you. You are to go to the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi, find that storage locker, and steal those ancient coins. To discourage you from doing anything, I'm going to shoot either one of your friends in the shoulder."

"You better not," she vowed. "You touch any of them, and I'll kill all of you."

"How about this, you don't threaten us, and I won't hurt any of your friends? Overlord doesn't like hurting innocent people."

"That seems self-contradictory, especially since you want to rule the world and you killed Kamille!?" Cassie remembered what those Overlord soldiers did to Kamille.

"No comment." Zaman gets to his feet and orders for Hamed and Harkov to remove themselves from Cassie's back. He allowed the woman to get back to her feet before he spoke up again. "Listen, Cassie, I don't want to hurt you because I see potential in you. Even the Leader see potential in you and the Leader wants you to rule with us."

"Hell no. If the world is going to fall, better it is all of us then one giant dictator group!" She had the guts to actually spit in her face. A soldier named Khaled was provoked by this and went up to her and punched her in the belly.

She laid there on the ground, she could just feel her stomach turning inside out. Her life was limited and she had to do something to buy herself a few more minutes. Right now, Zaman was giving her a chance to live. Giving her and her friends to live. If she screwed up, then it would be fatal. That's why she had to take out the soldier named Malik holding a gun to her head.

Cassie slaps the gun away with the back of her palm, flips over her side and kicks Malik in the hip. He drops the gun and before he could pick it up, Cassie kicked it out of his reach.

Zaman, Harkov, and Hamed backed away and watched as Cassie beat the life out of Malik.

Cassie punched Malik three times in the gut with her right fist, before finishing him off with a powerful hook with her left fist. The punch slammed Malik's head against really hard, bouncing off and onto his back, clutching his bleeding skull in pain.

A soldier named Marid charged at Cassie and she kicked him in the gut, grabbed him by the back of his neck and yanked him forward until his back was up against a bookshelf. She uppercuts the folded Marid in the chest, before delivering one hell of a blow to his chin that made him hit the back of his head against the bookshelf and collapse to the ground, dead. Cassie turned and looked at Zaman. "No fight in ya?"

"I just want to see what you're made of," Zaman said gleefully. "Omar, Kareem, you're up!"

Omar charged at Cassie from one side while Kareem charged at her from another side. Cassie ran in between two bookshelves. Omar and Kareem followed Cassie around the bookshelves. Impulsively, she pushed the bookshelf over and it feels right on Kareem. He was crushed by the shelf but was still alive.

Omar had climbed up the bookshelf and jumped onto Cassie. She moved out the way in time, Omar landing on his feet and she attacked. She jumped forward, knee bones leaned out and struck Omar in the chest. He flew backward and hit his head against the fallen bookshelf, but not hard enough to kill him. He was dizzy by the time he got up, thus making it useless to try and aim with his gun.

"I'm not done with you buddy-boy," Cassie smirked and took him out. She performs a backflip kick to Omar's jaw, knocking him out with only one strike. She landed like a gymnast and praised herself for performing such an impressive move. "Eat that."

Kareem crawled out as quickly as possible. He went around a bookshelf that was not knocked over so he could sneak up on Cassie from behind. Like a cat, he was silent in his steps and he crept over towards her.

He was up to her back and put her in a chokehold. Cassie, abruptly losing her normal rate of oxygen, elbowed Kareem in the nose and performed her finishing move. A backward cartwheel with the soles of both of her shoes connecting to both Kareem's jaw and throat. The soldier gasped and fell backward.

All it took for Cassie to stop fighting was for Zaman to put a gun to Derek's temple. She raised her hands and complied. "You know how many times I've had a gun in front of my face or my friend's face?"

Zaman shrugged.

"A gajillion times."

"Are you going to help up find the coins, or am I going to paint this room with Derek's brain matter?"

"You win. I'm going to Pakistan, but don't be trying any kind of bullshit, or else you will really, really regret it."


	14. Hiding In The Dark

Karachi, Pakistan

National Museum of Pakistan

Twelve Hours Later

Cassie got on a plane, was provided food, clothes, water, and even medicine by Overlord. The Pakistan native soldier's name was Tirdad and he was leading the mission with the badass Overlord woman named Lachina. Plus Cassie and all the Overlord soldiers sent on the missions, there was a total of eleven of them. Derek, Omaria, and Niko were all back in Afghanistan, being held hostage by Zaman.

Night time in Pakistan was actually beautiful. She was dressed in all black and standing on a rooftop adjunct to the museum. The Overlord soldiers behind her gazing at the view with her. She snapped herself out of it and told herself that she was here because she had a mission. She had to steal those coins from the storage locker or else Zaman will start chopping up Derek's toes and fingers and feed them to fish. _Not fishes, just piranhas._

Lachina walked up to Cassie and put her hand on Cassie's back. "You do realize that your time is limited? You have to find that storage locker and steal those coins." She offered a sigh of relief. "You are in luck because we are not going to let you scatter all over this place without a map. This here is the path you are going to take." She pulls out a map and presents it to Cassie. "Storage unit is just in room A15 in the museum. We have the schedules of the security guards mapped out, so you should be good to go."

"Did you mom not love you enough?" Cassie snickered before taking the map for herself. Tirdad walked up to Cassie and pushed her hard in the back. She fell over the ledge, but grabbed hold of a handhold and dangled from one hand. With one hand, she folded the map up and put it in her pocket.

She grabbed onto another handhold and started climbing across the building's wall the Drake way. She used numerous objects like pipes, bricks, and holes in the wall as handholds. Once she reached the edge of the building, she looked back, extending her hand out as far as possible and jumped for the rope leading from her building to the rooftop of the museum. Cassie did not look down, but she could tell she was high up...and she could tell that the Overlord audience watching her though she was a monkey. She moves across the rope until she was on the wall of the museum. She climbed more handholds, stopping only when there was a handhold that was out of reach. She held her hand up and jumped up there to grab the handhold with both hands. Nevertheless, she reached the roof and climbed onto it.

"Nice one, Cassie, ten points for you," she praised herself. "Now, onto important matters: the coins." She moves across the rooftop, remembering where to go in her head. _Room A15, just look for room A15 and that should be it._

She ran to the edge of the roof and jumped over. She gripped a handhold and started climbing down. Ten more feet and she will be at the bottom. She was about to jump down until she took note on how the door below her opened and a single guard came out and locked the door from the outside. Placing the keys in his pocket, he walks away.

 _Damn it, got to get those keys. Sorry man, but I have to save Derek, Niko, and Omaria._

She leaps out, suppressing a yelp as she lands feet-first on the guard's back before he could get out of range. The guard made no noise as he slammed head-first into the ground, unconscious. Cassie landed on her side and quickly grabbed the keys from the knocked out guard. "Sorry man," she apologized. "But if you were in my shoes, then you would understand. Just dream of ponies and knights saving the sleeping princess."

With the keys in her possession, she unlocks the door and quietly creeps through. All the lights in the museum were off, even the lights inside the display case. The dark clothes she wore helped conceal her appearance from the black lighting. She was practically invisible.

Flashlight beams danced around her. She crouched down and hid behind a large display case as footsteps neared her. She slowly moves her head to the side so she could get a good view of what was going on, her natural night vision turning on.

 _Let's see._ She did the observation. _I got two guards, both with a single Beretta 92FS, flashlight in hands, and I have total darkness to help me out._

Cassie somersaults towards another display case and hides behind that one. The guards were on high alert because they saw a shadow move in the distance before they could even get a clear view. One of the guards walked up to the display that Cassie was hiding behind. Cassie backed away and slid underneath a table. Once on the other side, she crept up on the guard from behind and knocked him out with a single elbow to the back of his forehead. The second guard's back was turned when this happened. Cassie crept up on him and 'knocked his lights out'.

"Sleep tight," she comments sardonically. The young woman moved around the other displays, taking notes on the camera that were recording, but wasn't pointing in her direction. _Okay, just get to the storage room, collect the coins, return them to Lachina, and everything should be alright from there._

She silently ran down a hall with a number of sarcophaguses and pressed her back to a wooden door. She looked at the label on the door and it read A8. She groans in frustration that she almost stomped on the tile below her. She stopped herself and looked around her. There was another path that this hallway leads to, so door A15 should be somewhere down there.

She kept her back pressed against the wall as she moved along the hallway. "How long does it take to find a room labeled A15?" she quietly asked herself. "If my time is limited in Afghanistan, then my time is limited here because I knocked out three guards who will sound the alarm once they wake up. Crap."

She heard Lachina calling on her earpiece. She answered by putting a finger to her earpiece and replied. "What the hell is it?"

"We hacked into the camera system, so you should be able to walk without pressing your back to a wall." Lachina was chuckling on her end for some reason. "You look stupid crawling against the wall."

Cassie replied, "What, no woman with a chest like mine's should be able to move? " She laughed at her own joke. "You wish you had a chest like mine."

Cassie removed her back from the wall and walked towards the door at the opposite end of her. It was labeled A15 in the center in gold. "Okay, Lachina, I found the door. Thing is, there is an electronic lock on it, any idea on how to open it if I can't pick it?"

"I think one of the guards you knocked out had an electronic keycard on them because one of them just came out that room." Lachina was mumbling until she spoke clear again. "Yeah, the second guard placed the keycard to the room in his back left pocket. Don't get any ideas."

Cassie crept back into the display that she came through first. She crawled to the guard she knocked out second and carefully rolled him onto his stomach because he initially fell on his back. Cassie took no pleasure in reaching down the guard's pocket to grab the keycard. A silver keycard in the palm of her hands prompted Cassie to jog back towards the door in the most silent way possible.

She swiped the key card across the black square underneath the knob and a soft beep and tiny green light went off in the black square. The door clicks unlocked and Cassie walks through. "I'm in, I repeat, I'm in."

Normally, she wouldn't have said anything, but these Overlord soldiers had hacked into the security system and are now watching her every move. Lachina's phone that was used to call Cassie was also equipped with a lie detector. If she uses more voice when she talks like most people use when they lie, then the detector will go off and expose her. She could not take any risks. They already warned that Omaria would be chopped up.

Cassie closed the door behind her. She took out her flashlight and turned it on. The room lit up with a single yellow beam. Cassie gave her eyes a moment to adjust before she aims the flashlight at a number of display cases. "So, this is a storage locker or something? Wow." She took a step forward but froze dead in her tracks when she realized that there were at least nine display cases in the storage room alone. All of them had some kind of ancient weapon inside with ancient currency. "What the hell, nine display cases? Are you serious?" She called Lachina to tell her about the nine display cases.

Tirdad was on. "Drake, listen, those display cases, they are fitted with an alarm if they aren't opened with a key. If one is opened, then closed and another is opened within five minutes, then the alarm will go off. Basically, if you open the wrong display case, you'll have to wait five minutes and thirty seconds to open the next one without sounding the alarm. We don't have time to wait 2970 seconds so you better make the first one count."

"That's forty-nine minutes and thirty seconds, almost an hour. What display case am I supposed to start with?"

"I haven't been there in a while, but what I do now is that A15 is a storage room for artifacts from Pakistan that have been deemed to mysterious or precious to be put on display. What I do know is that each display case has artifacts from at least one of the nine historical eras of South Asian history."

Cassie's eyes brightened with a wide smile across her face. "Thanks for the hint you terrorist, but shut up." She removed the earpiece to give her some actual time to think. "Okay girl. Think. The nine eras of South Asian history. From chronological order, there's Palaeolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Ag- the Indus Valley Civilization took place in the Bronze Age. If these display cases have artifacts from those time periods, then it would be placed in the fourth display case if they went in chronological order."

The display cases were indeed in chronological order. She shines her light into the fourth display case. Three dozen coins at least being laid in front of a spear cut in half to fit in the display case. "This is it." She removed her piton from her trousers and used it as a lockpick. Remembering what Tirdad said about the five-minute alarm, she was confident that this was the proper display case. It took her less than seventeen seconds to open the display case. She puts her flashlight in her belt loop and reaches inside to grab several coins. She examined each of them carefully, making sure that this is what she came for. More ancient writing that she couldn't read was right there on the coins. Each coin had the same thing written on them so it was unnecessary to take a dozen, just one. "As soon as I am done, I'm going to return these coins back to these display cases."

Cassie remembers as a little girl, instead of going to the park to play, she would go to archaeology museums and learn about history. Years later, she now has to steal from a museum. It pained her that she had to steal from a museum. _I guess it runs in the family._

Slowly and very carefully, she puts the rest of the coins back in the display case. She jumped in surprise when the alarm in the display case went off, half deafening her ear. "What the hell?!"

* * *

 **This chapter is dedicated to Stan Lee (December 28, 1922-November 12, 2018), the legendary creator of Marvel Comics. To all you Marvel fans out there and as a huge Marvel fan myself, I can tell that he will be missed a lot. Thank you, Stan Lee, for giving us such amazing and unforgettable characters. We will never forget you.**


	15. Cassie's Mercy

A small number of security guards rushed into the room. Cassie jammed the coins into her pockets and faced the guards. All of them had straight stick police batons. "Wow, those look painful," Cassie commented dryly. "I think I'll just give up. Then again, I can totally beat the nine of you." She had no intention of harming any of the security officers, but Derek, Omaria, and Niko's lives were on the line so physically combat was necessary for this battle. She was outnumbered nine to one, but not 'out-weaponed.' She had historical battle weapons that she could use to take them out without killing them.

Cassie's spider-senses went off. She turned her head forward and a being materialized in front of her from the darkness. Her eyes widen in horror as she realized what it was: A security officer swinging a fire ax. She jerks her head back, the fire ax missing her face and smashes into the glass of a display case beside her. She kicks the officer in the back and kicks the second officer that materialized from the darkness in the sternum, giving herself elbow room.

The closest thing besides her was the glass of the smashed display case, but with her night vision that she gained over the years, she saw that the display case was displaying an ancient staff made of iron steel. Using a kind of weapon like that would surely put a dent in a person's skeleton. She grabbed it from its resting place and was about to swing it, but Officer One grabbed it and tried yanking it away.

Cassie was not going to allow him to take her only chance to defend herself. She relies on instinct and wits to kick Officer One in the groin, forcing him to fold and grab his aching testicles. She hammered the staff into the back of his head with considerable force, which knocked him out.

The remaining eight officers all rushed at her with their police batons. The first three officers and the one she kicked in the sternum attacked her.

They all had some kind of weapon fitted with a blunt end, but she had a weapon that was designed for distant strikes. She kept track of where the blunt weapons swung at and she would use the bo staff to deflect each blow. When she saw an opening, she struck Officer Two in the lung, forcing a scream out of him. Her next target was Officer Three. She whacked the man twice in the chest before hammering the staff into his heart area so hard that the strike echoed throughout the museum.

Officer Four and Officer Five cornered her. She assaults them both, hitting one quickly and then hitting the other at the same speed and repeating the process between the two. Officer Five fell down to the ground after being whacked in the back and Cassie used all her energy and force to focus on Officer Four. She whacked him on either side of his waist, chest, legs, arms, and finally finished him off with a single strike to the forehead. Officer Five was sitting on one knee as he threw his weapon at Cassie. Fortunately, she noticed in time and dodged it. She took out Officer Five by striking him in both of the legs with massive force as he jumped to his feet and knocked his lights out with a hammer to the temple.

There were only five Officers left and they were now wary of Cassie's ability to fight with a stick as if it were a bo staff. Officer Two, who was still conscious, threw caution to the wind and rushed her. This only ended up with him getting whacked in the head like a pinata.

The last four Officers were somewhat fearful of getting struck by the object in Cassie's hand. When Cassie noticed, she smiled. "Come on boys, plenty of me to go around for all of you."

Officer Six had a machete in his hand that he grabbed from a display case and slashed at Cassie. She deflected the blow and kicked the man in the gut. Officer Seven decided to help out his friend and went for Cassie. He only ended up getting his foot hit by the stick.

"Let's dance," Cassie goaded. Officer Six and Officer Seven slashed at Cassie simultaneously, but she managed to hold her own against the two. From her point of view, the entire fight was easy peasy lemon squeezy. She simply took out Officer Six by striking him from all sides until the pain became too much for him to bear and he passed out. Officer Seven was still determined to get Cassie and he proved this by tackling Cassie to the ground. She just flipped him over her body and kipped up. Officer Eight ran for her, and she whacked him against the head, knocking him out. She rotates around in an instant and strikes the staff directly down on Officer Seven's head, knocking him out like it was nothing. Now there was nobody left but Officer Nine.

Officer Nine was loyal to his workforce and all, but he knew at this point that after seeing an opponent take out eight of your teammates, then you have to fold the cards. He did the smart thing by throwing his weapon aside and making a run for it.

Cassie looked at the eight unconscious bodies and gazed upon her iron stick in his hands. "You are a very useful tool." She kisses it and says, "You're staying with me until I get out of here." She checks her pockets again for the coins before running out of the room. She goes back the way she comes, only to discover a gated fence between her and the area where she knocked out the first two guards. She doubles back and runs back down the hallway.

An officer stands in front an door labeled 'exit' and aims a tranquilizer at her. Cassie's eyes widen in horror and she lunges to the side. The tranquilizer made a thwip sound as it whistled past her ear and lodged into the wall. She sprinted towards the man with the tranq gun and whacked him across the temple. She hops over his body and through the door.

The door leads her outside with pillars all around her. The pillars, however, were gated off. The ceiling was out of reach and at the far end of the pillar path was just a wall. But a wall with handholds. Looking up the wall, her eyes find a hole in the ceiling that would lead to the roof. "More climbing, right up my alley." Her keen ears pick up on sounds coming from behind her. She shifted her head a few inches, listening carefully to those noises. _Shit, more guards._ She licks her lips, shuts the door, and runs down the path. Reaching the wall, she put her left foot on the wall and jumped up.

Her left hand grabbed onto a handhold and she glued her feet to the wall. The bo staff was in her left hand. She uses the strength in her legs to launch herself up, throwing the bo staff in her opposite hand as her right hand grabs the second handhold. The opening in the ceiling was only thirty more feet and she repeated the process: using her legs to jump and grab handholds while switching the bo staff in hands.

The security officers broke the door down and a dozen of them came through with tranquilizers. Cassie heard multiple thwip sounds and something made her whole body spasm. A dart grazed her jeans, startling her to the point where she almost lost her grip. Nevertheless, she made it to the top and crawled through the opening. She thought she was out of the woods, but something sharp pricks into her tendon. Her eyes widen, breath stolen from her.

Dizzy and gasping for air, her whole body stiffens as she falls back. She fell through the opening and would've fallen to her death if not for her bo staff. The bo staff was longer in width than the hole. So when the bo staff could not fall through the hole, it acted as a bar for Cassie to hang on to prevent her from falling to her death.

She dared not looking down for she knew that whatever pricked her in the tendon would make her dizzier and she would lose her grip. The officers, they kept on shooting at her, hoping that she would lose her grip and fall. Some of them ran back through the door, most likely to find an alternate route to the roof.

Cassie fights through the drugs and pulled herself up. _I'm grateful I have upper body strength._ On the roof, she retrieves her bo staff and crawls away from the opening. "Fight through it, Cass," she said to herself dryly. The drugs that entered through her tendon made her leg numb. "Great, now I have to limp the rest of the way back to Lachina." She groans in frustration. "I guess I'll sue my bo staff as a support."

The guards found a door leading to the roof and burst through. Cassie dived forward and jumped off the roof. She grabbed onto a wall that leads to a roof that was even further up. Once again, she had to do the jump with legs, switch bo staff in hands technique again. She succeeded in crawling up the second roof but was met with a dead end.

As much as she hated this, the only way to successfully escape these guards was to radio Lachina and tell her. She was so going to regret calling the villains of her adventures for help. _As long as I have the coins in my pockets, I am useful for enough time to escape._ She calls Lachina on her earpiece and tells her of her situation. "I need evacuation, right now!"

She could practically hear the woman smiling. "I don't know, did you get the coins? I mean, you must've because there is an estimate of twelve hostiles climbing into one elevator and riding it all the way to the roof."

Cassie growled at hearing Lachina's voice. She had no time for games, she was not just going to surrender to them by asking for their flight out of here. She was going to let Lachina know that even if she is at their mercy, Overlord will always be at Cassie's mercy. "Listen here, Lachina, you better get me out of here because if you don't, I'll be captured. Zaman ordered you and Tirdad to make sure that I get into the museum and out, _safely_. Once he hears that you let me be captured, then I am pretty sure that he is going to be mad at you because you single-handedly jacked up his plans to rule the world. A second attempt would be almost impossible because when I'm captured, I'm going to be telling them about the coins and how you want them so much and they will put the coins on lockdown. I will expose Overlord and you guys will be at _my_ mercy. I am well-known back home in America and I've been proven innocent in three cases which I truly was innocent in. I've got contacts everywhere, speak at least two dozen languages both modern and ancient, and I know every local custom, and I am famous all over Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, Australia, and North America obviously. Hell, even people in Antarctica know about me. Come pick me up, or I will expose Overlord."

Lachina did not utter a single word over the radio. She was seething with the other soldiers. They could not believe that Cassie challenged them to a fight they knew they would most certainly lose. Begrudgingly, Lachina ordered for several soldiers to activate their unmanned helicopter and fly it towards Cassie's current location. The mini helicopter was a little bird that made a loud sound when it started up. It was parked just several feet behind them. The little bird flew to Cassie's current location and she jumped onto the landing pad with her bo staff in one hand. She hung from the landing pad with only one hand. She could still feel the numbness in her leg.

"Escape via little bird helicopter, the last thing I ever expected." Cassie looked at the security officers as they arrived onto the roof she was just picked up on. They were slowly shrinking to ant size as she flew off. With the staff in her hand, she waved at them. "I promise to bring back the items to the museum." She looked at the ground below her and started getting dizzy. "Man, I never should've done that." She giggles to herself. "That's what _he_ said."

* * *

 **This story is officially halfway done.**


	16. Connect the Dots

Afghanistan

A Day Later

Cassie had returned a day later and was sitting on the couch in the hotel room that Overlord provided for her. Derek sat beside her. Her leg was dangling off the bed and slowly swinging back and forth while her other leg was laying on the bed in a stiffened state, ice pack under her calf. The tranq dart that she was shot with hit her in her tendons and rendered her leg numb. The scientist and doctor named Hamed stated that her leg was going to be numb for twenty-four hours due to the tranq dart paralyzing the elastic fiber in her leg, rendering her leg unable to flex or stretch. No damage has been sustained and the elastic fibers will start working as soon as the tranq dart wears off in twenty-four hours. It has currently been twenty hours since she was shot, so only four hours left.

"These are the coins that are going to help us?" Derek asked as he spread the coins across the bed, counting each of them and examining them like a forensics expert.

"They're going to help us; Zaman is giving us three hours to decipher before they start doing damage to Niko and Omaria." Cassie regretted helping the villains, but Niko and Omaria's lives were on the lines. "We still have two hours and fifty-six minutes to figure out this puzzle."

In Cassie's hands was the triangle that Overlord willingly gave them. She held her hand out and Derek placed a coin in. Cassie flips high up in the air, catching it and gently placing it in the center of the triangle. She waited thirty seconds for some kind of result, but nothing. Cassie's eyes narrowed as she gazed at the triangle. "What the crap is going on?" She tried a different coin and the result was the same. She held her free hand up in confusion.

"Are you sure that these are the right coins?" Derek's voice trembled as he spoke.

"I couldn't be surer if I shot a man in the skull and he never came back to life," she answered. "I knew it would be too easy. I knew there was a reason that Overlord gave us this task rather than them solving it themselves." She looks at all the coins, all of them belonging to the era that this object was made in. All of them fit in the center of the triangle, but apparently, there was more to that. If her leg wasn't numb, then she would be pacing a hole in the floor.

"We should get some brain food," he suggested. He gets up from the bed and nears the mini fridge in the corner. He looks to Cassie and asks her what she wants. She ignored him.

She was preoccupied with trying to solve this Sudoku-like puzzle. Cassie was given two water bottles by Derek, and still, no real progress had been made. "Why can't I figure this thing out?"

An hour passed and she was trying a variety of coin combinations. Derek was helping her out, but getting hungry. They had only two hours left before Overlord would be taking over. Cassie was so fixated with solving this puzzle that she forgot to eat the cuisine that Derek laid out on the bed for her. When she did notice the food, she took slow bites to the point where her food got cold before it was even finished.

"This is impossible to decipher," she grumbles to herself. "Why can't I figure this thing out?" She almost threw the triangle across the floor. "I must be missing something." She was talking to herself, not Derek.

Another hour passed and still nothing. It wasn't until she had a remainder of thirty minutes left that she finally figured out how to do this puzzle. "I've finally figured it out," she cheered to Derek. "I finally figured it out. This triangle, it's not something that leads you to the tomb directly, the coins act as a key to unlock this navigational device implanted in the triangle." Derek looked stump, so she needed her to clarify. "Listen here, D-Man, it's like Dad's astrolabe or whatever. Remember how it could only be unlocked by some kind of ring, well, the same thing goes for this. Dad's astrolabe didn't lead him directly towards the Atlantis of the Sands but helped him decipher his great-great grandfather's writing. The coins are the key and what these symbols inside the triangle represent are coordinates. It took me a while to figure it out, but the Arabs used stars to navigate the deserts like pirates. It makes plenty of sense that they would use constellations to get across land."

"So what you are basically saying is, that triangle object is some kind of constellation decoder?" Derek asked curiously.

"Correct," she answered before looking out the window. "It's a good night outside." She looks at her wristwatch and limped towards the window to look out. The ground is a good distance away and the night was full of stars. With the triangle in her hand and a coin inside the triangle, she held it up to her eye level and an arm's length away. Looking through the opening in the triangle, she saw the stars being colored by a yellow light and a bright line connecting the multiple stars together like connect the dots. They kept connecting to each other, reaching out into the far distance into lands unknown.

Cassie lowered the triangle and looked out into the distance that the triangle was pointing towards. "It's like a compass; there is some kind of magnetic force that pulls the triangle's navigational system towards the tomb." She continued to star off in the distance, wondering what country the tomb was in. Instead of wondering, she pulled her head inside and limped towards the counter. "Derek, man, it's time to reveal the location of Cleopatra's and Antony's long lost tomb."

"Yeah," said Derek.

Cassie laid down on her bed, journal, and pencil in her hands while Derek was sticking his head out the window with the triangle in his hand. Cassie prepared herself and called out to Derek. "Tell me the approximate coordinates."

Derek followed the gaze of the connecting dots in the sky. He tried counting all the stars but focused on the direction that the dots were being connected in. He told Cassie what he saw, the approximate coordinates and she began labeling everything he said. His eyesight reached out to far as it could see, but the connected dots continued to connect in the distance. "I can't see no more lines," he announced to her.

"No need, what constellations do you see outside?"

Derek withdrew the triangle and looked for the constellations. "I see Orion, the Big Dipper, Eridanus, and that's about it."

Cassie drew the constellations in her journal along with the dotted stars in her journal. When she finished, she smiled at herself and urged Derek to come over. "You are not going to believe this." When Derek sat upon the bed with her, she explained her thesis. "Okay, so you see this star pattern and these constellations? Well, with a little geography, geometry, and astronomy knowledge, I am able to pinpoint the exact location of the lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra."

"Whatcha got?"

"Okay, these stars stretch out beyond Afghanistan to the southwest. The constellations are part of one endless pattern of boundaries. Basically, those constellations tell you that if you walk in any directions of the constellations like north, east, south, then you are going the wrong path. You have to stay in the middle of the southwest path exactly. The pattern of connected dots is not endless, however. You see, the farther it stretches out, the more narrow it becomes to the point of the tip of a blade. Using this method, I am able to determine that the lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra is not in Egypt, but in Saudia Arabia."

Derek narrowed his eyes in shock, unable to comprehend anything that she has said. "You...you found the tomb of Antony and Cleopatra?"

"In the Arabian Desert, not the Rub al' Khali. There is no specific place in the desert, but as long as we follow the stars, then we should be golden." Cassie clarified this by showing him her journal. He took it in his hands and studied it himself. "Only thing I can think of is that a sandstorm hides it, good reason for why it has not been found."

"What are you going to tell Zaman? Are you just going to give him the journal and say 'hey, look at this, we just discovered the location of a long lost ancient pharaoh of Egypt, we are no longer useful, kill us boys, but molest the girls?' "

Cassie shot him a look with a blank expression that was clear enough for Derek to understand that they had to do what they had to do. One way, or at least another way.

Sadly, they had to take the journal to Zaman and the Overlord thugs downstairs. Niko and Omaria remained unharmed but determined to break out. Unfortunately, Harkov was grabbing Niko by the hair while the one soldier with the mask grabbing Omaria by the throat. Zaman snatched the journal from Cassie's grasp and handed the journal to Hamed.

The Overlord scientist examined the journal and object. The other Overlord soldiers seemed to stare off into space as Hamed made his analysis. Cassie and Derek stood at the door of the library and were slowly backing out. Zaman drew his gun at them, freezing them in their tracks.

"Okay then," Hamed said to himself quietly. "These seem genuine," he continued. Cassie heard him mumbling more stuff like: I can't believe this, how extortionary, it's so ingenious.

"Zaman," Hamed called out. "We have a map drawn to the tomb. These two treasure hunters drew us a map to lead us to Overlord's destiny."

"Yeah," Zaman silently cheered.

"That's good to know," Hakov began. "Now, let's kill Cassie Drake and sell her corpse to the black market."

Cassie remembered what she was feeling in the elevator. The fact that Harkov unintentionally knew what she feard practically made him a Freddy Kreuger.

"We're not going to do that," said Zaman. "We're going to give them what they deserve: a slow and agonizing death." He turned to his soldiers. "Gather everything up; we're going to take a drive to the desert and see if these four can crawl like scorpions."


	17. Unfriendly Water

Overlord drove Cassie, Derek, Niko, and Omaria out to the desert in the middle of nowhere, took them to a tomb that was buried up to the roof in the sand, tossed them in there and threw a dozen grenades in there. Not explosive grenades, gas grenades; ones filled with chlorine. The four treasure hunters tried to escape, but Overlord blew up the only entrance into the buried tomb. Cassie growled in frustration as the feeling in her leg slowly turned from numbness to agony.

Derek and Niko carry Cassie through the hallway of the buried tomb with Omaria leading the way with a torch. "Come on guys, those grenades are soon gonna fill this entire place up," she urged impatiently. "I did not live two decades just to die of chlorine gas."

Cassie could not agree more. She was turning twenty-two in June and she intended to live to get to her birthday. As the pain slowly wore off in her leg, she ground her teeth as she started flexing her leg. Derek and Niko slowly came to a stop and helped support Cassie's balance as she walked forward.

"Are you okay?" Niko asked with concern. "How's your leg feeling?"

Cassie answered him. "I think the elastic fibers are starting to regain their senses again." She massages her calf and the part of her leg where she was shot with. "I can feel my leg again," she happily announced. When she turned around and saw the chlorine in smoke form slowly coming towards them, her happiness was replaced with concern. "Guys, let's find a way out of here."

"No doubt about that," Derek replied. "What kind of tomb are we in any way? Niko?"

"The tomb of Tefnut," he answered quickly. This answer made Cassie's eyes widen in curiosity.

"You mean the tomb of Tefnut, that was lost in the sandstorm five years ago? The tomb of an ancient ruler who was the god of moisture? You are actually saying that we are in a tomb dedicated to a water god? How in the hell did Overlord even find it?"

"What are you getting at?"

"D-Man, if we are in a water god's tomb, then that means that there are water channels that run throughout the tomb. Even if the tomb is old and dried of water, there are still channels. Those water channels have to lead to somewhere and according to my geography memory, we should be close to the Hari river." Instead of waiting for the others, she ran forward, stopping only when she realized that the others weren't following. "What is this, a jig? Come on guys, that chlorine gas is on our tails." She looked at the colorless smoke cloud coming their way. She smelt a foul odor and realized that the chlorine smell was catching up faster than the actual smoke. "Omaria, get rid of the torch, I still have my flashlight on me."

Omaria realized that chlorine was a flammable chemical element and quickly extinguished the torch with Niko helping. "What's the plan, Cass?" Niko asked.

"Don't follow me." She turned on her angle head flashlight and shined it at the ground beside her. A dry narrow pathway for water to travel by. There was another water pathway on the opposite side. "Follow the water path."

"How do we know it will work?" asked Derek.

"Every building has to have a discharge for water, so let's go." Cassie turned back, the others now following. The four of them sprinted like hell just to get away from the chlorine gas. They came up to a doorway blocked off by debris. Seeing no other way around, Cassie looks up and sees an opening.

Taking her flashlight with her, she climbs up to the top and jumps through the opening, landing on the other side. "It's safe guys, hurry up though." First came Derek, then Niko, and Omaria finally. The water path still continued on, giving the four young treasure hunters hope that they would survive this ordeal. But as the path continued, the obstacles doubled. There were fallen pillars and chunks of debris blocking their path, forcing them to use parkour to get up and over.

The water pathway leads them to a small room with no doors or other openings. They stopped running in the middle of the room. They turned back to see if they could find an alternate path but the chlorine smoke has already caught up and running back would be like running into the fire.

"Crap," Niko cursed. "We're deep in the frying pan now."

Cassie rolled her eyes, "No, we're out of the frying pan...and in the fire." She looked over her shoulder to see the water path leading to the wall. An idea forms in her head. "Guys, break down the wall. If water could flow through then that means that there's a path of some kind."

"This is a man's job," Derek commented as he shouldered into the wall. He howled in pain as he bounces back. The pain was replaced with adrenaline and he rammed into the wall again. His cousin went to help him out and the results were the same. Cassie and Omaria grabbed chunks of debris and flung them at the wall beside the two men. Cracks form in the wall, giving all four of them hope that they would indeed escape.

It was their last chance to break through the wall because the chlorine gas was catching up to them and preparing to gas all of them to death. Derek and Niko back up to Cassie and Omaria. All four of them howl in determination and all go charging for the wall, crashing through it and falling into a stream of water with a strong current. Cassie kept a tight grip on her flashlight as her head surfaces. She could not see anything but darkness. She tries shining the light out in front of her so she could see where's she going, but she was immediately pulled down into the water and struggled to get to the surface. It felt like someone was holding onto her foot and trying to drown her to death.

Water fills her lungs due to her not having the chance to inhale any air before being submerged in water. She kicks and thrashes to get to the surface, ultimate failing. As the current pushed her away, she could feel herself blacking out from lack of oxygen. Her lungs demanded air. Her lungs felt like they were going to explode like balloons. Cassie's eyes widened as she felt her lungs begin swelling from inside her chest, begging for air like a child. She could practically feel her veins protruding in her cheeks and her eyes about to pop out of her eye sockets.

She couldn't take it anymore. She knew that she was going to pass out, she just hoped that Derek would save her.

Derek…

When she thought of that name, her heart poured out of her chest. If this was how she was going to die, then she truly regrets not telling Derek her feelings. Maybe if she took the opportunity before she went to Pakistan... _no. I am going to be telling him on my own terms. I am immortal and I will survive this ordeal. I will survive. Once this adventure is done and we go back home to Hawaii, then I will tell him._

She had peaceful thoughts as she closed her eyes, confident that she would survive. Her mouth slowly opened and air bubbles exhaled out. A hand grabs her shoulder and she feels something pressed against her lips and enter her mouth. Whatever it was, it gave her oxygen. Enough oxygen to the point where she was able to open her eyes and see the figure who bought her a few seconds of life.

Derek had taken of break of air before being submerged and gave half of his deep breath to Cassie. He was losing consciousness himself but was holding onto consciousness as long as possible because the stream was carrying them towards an opening at the very end of this ride. Derek took Cassie's flashlight and shined it forward. He had little time to react before the two of them went flying forward several feet and falling several yards down.

Omaria and Niko followed behind and fell.

None of the four treasure hunters screamed as they plunged thirty feet to an open river. They splashed down hard into the river, injuring themselves. Using the last of her breath, Cassie slowly swam for the surface, sucking in a breath of air as if it was the first time she breathed as soon as she was surfaced. Weakened, she swims towards land, crawling on the ground and flipping onto her back.

As she slowly regained her breath, she gazed out into the beautiful black sky, thinking how if Derek's hadn't saved her, then she would be floating up towards the sky. Just thinking about that made her stomach feel weird. Her grandfather, Victor Sullivan, was in Heaven. She missed him but thinking of the fact that Derek sacrificed half his life to save her meant that if he died and she lived, then she would miss Derek more.

"What the hell was that?" Omaria demanded as she crawled onto land. "We get swamped into a water current and we end up taking a ride down Sun Splash and end up here in the Hari?" She collapsed to her side and closed her eyes. "I'm just grateful to be alive."

Derek and Niko coughed and gagged their throats out as they crawled on their elbows and knees onto land. Niko falls on his back and sighs deeply. "I did not sign up for this."

"Neither did I," Omaria put in.

Derek took in slow and deep breaths as his oxygen came back to him. The veins protruding on his face were slowly fading away and his lungs became softer as they received the one thing they desperately craved. He still had Cassie's flashlight in his hand and did the right thing by returning it to her. "That was something, wasn't it?"

"Okay then, what are we going to do now?" Omaria asked. "Are we just going to go call the police and tell them about Overlord? I think that would be the smart thing to do."

Niko nodded. "Yeah, I agree with Omaria. Phoning the police seems like the smart thing."

Cassie coughed before sitting up. She wiped the water out of her eyes and gazed at her soaking wet friends. "Although phoning the police would be the smart thing, it won't do anything. We have basically drawn Overlord a map to a tomb that is holding something so devious, that it could actually help them with world domination. Overlord is so secret, the police won't even know who to arrest. I'm afraid that this is no longer in the police's hands. We're gonna have to solve this problem ourselves."

"In other words," Derek began, "We are going to race Overlord to the tomb of Cleopatra? How? They took the astrolabe thing-a-ma-jig. Did you copy it down in your notes?"

"Of course I did," she answered quickly. "If you think that that doctor named Hamed took it, think again." She whipped something out of her back pocket. "Despite being an archaeologist, Dad has taught me how to pickpocket in case it was necessary." It was the journal in her hands. "Not only that, but he taught me how to put things in other people's pockets without them realizing it. So once Hamed reached into his back pocket to grab _my_ journal, he's going to get something else."

"So you copied the location of the tomb down in your journal," Derek clarified. "How long will it take for us to get to Saudi Arabia?"

"I believe a couple hours by plane." Cassie slowly got back on her feet and stretched. "Either way, I'm pretty sure that we have to get there quickly before Overlord does." She flipped through several pages of the journal, making sure that the waterproof journal did its job. "Derek man, I'm not going to force you to come to Saudi Arabia with me, but I drew a map for Overlord and I have to take responsibility. I have to stop them, even if it's me against an army. Are you in? I won't blame if you if you're out."

"I'm in." He shrugged. "I've been in since the very beginning and I'll be in until the very end."

"Thanks, Derek," she said softly. "Thanks a lot," _I promise that I will confess my feelings to him._

"Wait," Niko spoke up for the first time since swimming to shore. "Cuz, I'm going with you. If you die, I don't want to have to tell your mom- my aunt- that her son and my cousin died and I wasn't there to do anything."

"Not gonna happened."

"I'll go with you because families are supposed to have each other's backs."

All three heads turned to Omaria. The woman was still coughing up water, but once the eyes hit her, she came up with a quick, yet well-thought-out decision. "Those Overlord bastards are going to pay for killing my cousin. I'm going too."

Cassie and Derek both nodded before turning to each other. Cassie put a hand on his shoulder and asked, "Time to _Die_ _Hard_ these Overlord bastards."

* * *

 **Happy Thanksgiving**


	18. Even

Al Faisaliyah Center, Saudi Arabia

The Next Day

Cassie could not believe her luck. Her friends and herself were just going to Saudi Arabia to resupply on stuff they were going to need on their journey and Omaria talked them into getting a guest room at the Al Faisaliyah Center, which, by Cassie's calculations, was one of the tallest buildings in Saudi Arabia, standing over eight hundred and seventy-six feet tall.

Cassie stared out the window for a brief second to gaze at the amazing view. The others were getting settled with food, so Cassie took the opportunity to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Saudi Arabia."

Derek and Niko were stuffing their faces with fruit as a way to build up the protein that was going to be needed for when they seek the lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra either today or tomorrow. Most likely today, if Omaria and Cassie could use their math, geometry, geography, and astronomy skills to find the exact location of the tomb.

Cassie sat with her legs crossed and began analyzing her journal with Omaria on the brown leather couch beside her. Together, they put their hard knowledge to work and began writing down their analysis and observations. Derek and Niko watched with curiosity as the girls worked their magic. They wanted to help themselves but their astronomy and geography skills were not that good.

But Cassie and Omaria found a job for them.

"Grape, please," Cassie demanded politely. Derek's action was that of a servant: Grabbing a green grape from the orange basket on the coffee table in front of him and placing it in the young girl's mouth. "Thanks, Derek." She smacked her lips before snapping full attention to trying to figure out the next step to this astronomy puzzle. "Water, please?"

Cassie adjusted her contact lenses as she put her nose to her journal, believing to have deduced some kind of clue. Her face remained expressionless as she silently looked at Niko, then Derek, and Omaria without saying any words. She didn't move her head, but her eyes. She licked her lips with a rush of adrenaline in her heart. She grabs the pencil place in the spine of her journal and jotted several numbers down.

"You got something?" Niko asked. "It looks like you got something." She didn't answer, causing him to shift to a state of anxiety. "What is it?"

Derek tapped his cousin on the shoulder and leaned into his ear. "She's in the zone right now; she practically can't hear you," he whispered softly. Niko questioned what he meant and he answered. "It basically means that she is giving everything she's got to deduce her next move or figure out her next move. She does listen to people talking but doesn't pay attention. It's something she got from her father. It's always best to be silent when she's in the zone."

Niko nodded like a teeter-totter. "If you say so." From that point on, Niko remained quiet.

"Got it," Cassie said out loud. "I figure it out. I figured out the exact coordinates and everything else needed. This gives us a better advantage because we know exactly where to go while Overlord has to wait until nighttime to use the astrolabe thingy. I need one of us to get on that computer and type in the exact coordinates that I am about to give."

"I'm already on the case," Omaria announced as she jumped off of the leather couch, leaving a loud cracking noise in the wake, hops onto a chair at the counter and turns on the laptop. She presses in the building wi-fi and password and scrolls to Google Maps. She prepares to write down longitudes and latitudes instead of a general area. "OK, go!"

Cassie read off the coordinates she wrote in her journal. "Twenty-one degrees, fifty-eight minutes, eleven point eight minutes north, forty-seven degrees, fifty-eight minutes, fifty point nine degrees east. Type in those exact coordinates and it should show us some kind of land in the desert."

Omaria typed in all the numbers and an image popped up on Google Maps, which was nothing more than an image of a strip of desert land in the middle of nowhere. She looked at the image of the middle of nowhere with a sour look before looking back at Cassie with a look of annoyance. "Are you serious? Are you really serious right now, Cassie? What pops up on the screen is nothing. Are you even sure you got that right?"

"Now you doubt me?" Cassie laid back. "I'm always right, which is why you should always listen to me." She was confident that she had the right answer. She was expecting Omaria to see nothing on Google Maps so she could have a chance to explain. "We are looking for a place that is supposed to be lost. If it's uncharted, then that means that we are on the right page. In order to look for a lost place, you have to be lost."

Cassie moved towards the computer and gazed at the image herself. She saw what Omaria saw: An image of nothingness. She nodded and looked back at her journal. "Look Omaria, these coordinates that I deduced in my journal are the same as the ones on the computer. I was expecting nothing to pop up, so no need to get an attitude."

Omaria raised her hands in surrender. "Sorry, I'm anxious because I really want to get the goons who killed my cousin."

Cassie understood her feelings of agony. "I know what's it's like to have a close relative died. Once I print out this portion of the map, then we can all get a move on before it gets dark."

"I'll start packing," Derek announced. "You can help me, Niko."

His cousin shrugged, not seeing anything wrong with that. "We're gonna need a gun store or something."

"There should be one across the street. Let's go get some Beretta 92FSs."

Cassie was gathering up all her notes and other stuff that she might need on her adventure. Niko and Omaria went out to buy equipment like grappling hooks, more pitons, a GPS, water bottles, MREs, guns, the essentials basically. Derek was printing Cassie's Google Maps image out and drawing a map on it.

Once Cassie finished packing everything up, she moved over towards Derek and sighed, crossing her arms. She was trying to think of the words to say. When she finally though of the right words ot say, she spoke them to Derek. "You saved me in Tefnut's tomb. Thanks a lot man, I really do owe you."

Derek just shook his head. "We're even. You carried me out of that pyramid in Bosnia when my leg was broken. You were about to hit your head against the rock wall if your head remained surfaced and I saved you by pulling you under."

"And you gave me half of your breath," she reminded. "Thanks a lot for that. That gave me plenty of hope that I would survive indeed. Where would I be without you?" She was grateful, but decided to play with him by pretending to think. "Wait, I think I would be in this same place with a different companion by my side. Regardless if my new companion was male or female."

Now Derek was getting anxious. He did not want to picture Cassie with anybody by her side with the exception of himself. He knew that she was driving him crazy just for the thrill of it, and refused to show it. He quickly changed the subject. "Once we find the tomb and stop Overlord, then what are we going to do?"

Cassie, knowing that she was driving him crazy, said nothing, until she found a solution. "After we take out those Overlord punks and find out whatever is inside the tomb that they want so badly, then we are going to seal the entrance for good and make sure that it is never found. Some things are best left unfound, especially when an organzation composed of six percent of the world population- as Lachina told me- is after that one thing."

She looked down at her shoes and then out the window. Derek asked, "We're going to be going out there in the hot desert. Are you prepared for something like that?"

She instantly nodded like a robot while continuing to look out the window. "It'll be just like my Dad's Atlantis of the Sands...except it's us against 6/100 of the world, and there's only four of us. At least we won't be stranded out in the middle of nowhere."

"Unless your calculations are wrong," he doubted his own words. "You are one hundred percent sure that these are the right coordinates?"

"I could not be surer if nine years have passed in _The_ _Walking_ _Dead_ by episode six of season nine. Honestly, with the talking zombies, that has got to be one of my favorite seasons."

"I liked _Fear The Walking Dead_."

"But seriously, in season eight, did they have to kill Carl? I swear, I was crying my eyes out as soon as I saw that shot of him revealing his wound. I was pissed off for four months over his death."

"Why are we talking about TV shows?" Derek smacked himself in the head for letting himself get distracted. "We should be heading down to the lobby right now."

Cassie was laid-back and told Derek not to worry. "Besides, we still have to wait for Omaria and Niko because there's some stuff that we can't grab with just the two of us, so it's better to wait for them to come back up and then we all go together as a group." She knew that Derek understood because he said 'I guess that makes sense' in a dry tone. "Okay then, let's start stuffing our faces with the cuisine in the fridge while Omaria and Niko get back."

"How are we even going to go all the way out the desert? Fly there like eagles?"

Cassie ignored him and went to the fridge to take a bite of an apple. "We'll figure something out. Either way, we are going to get there before nightfall. Last night, when Overlord ditched us, I knew they couldn't find the tomb from above because my sandstorm theory was proven correct when I looked at the image on Google Maps. Even so, I might have sabotaged the navigational system by jamming several coins into the opening and bending the triangle until it cracked. Once I checked the navigational system after it cracked, it kept on faltering."

"Wow," Derek said in an impressed voice. "I got to say, that is pretty smart. By the way, what did you put in that one Overlord scientists pocket? I am curious."

Cassie took one bite of her apple and tossed it in the can. "Something to make his finger bleed profusely. I replaced the journal with a mouse trapped fitted with a razor blade on the end. The bumpiness in the truck we were being carried in gave me the advantage."

"Where'd you get the mouse trap from?"

"It was in our hotel room. Found in the closet, along with a tape outline of a body...it was very cringey."

"There was a tape outline of a human body in the closet?" Derek could not believe her words. "I"m glad we weren't in that room anymore."

She could not agree more. "Anyways, once we arrive at the tomb, we make sure that it is blown to smithereens with everything inside, leave no evidence, and hide all evidence of our voyage. All of us will hopefully swear to secrecy anout the tomb."

"And as for Overlord?"

"We're going to take out Zaman, Hamed, and Harkov. Those are only three people, but we will expose the other six percent of the population to the public and hope that the military does something about Overlord...that is if Overlord doesn't have any inside men or women in the United States military."


	19. A Guide Over The GPS

Somewhere in the Arabian Desert of Saudi Arabia

Same time as Cassie and Derek converse

Farid Zaman put a hand on his friend's shoulder and comforted him. The Overlord scientist and right-hand man of Farid Zaman, Hamed Najam, was massaging his middle finger.

Earlier this morning when there was still a night sky above them, when they arrived in Saudi Arabia, Hamed Najam reached into his jacket pocket to pull out the navigational device. He held it above his head, only for him to notice the coins jammed in and the device bent.

He tried taking the coins out, but they were jammed in the device really good. The device was working, but faltering every five-seven seconds. "That bitch, Drake, sabotaged this device," he said to his friend, he growled in anger. He remembered seeing more detailed notes in Cassie's journal, so he reached into his back right pocket. Expecting to feel the touch of a hardcover pocket size notebook, he felt something else.

He screams in agony, nearly deafening every single Overlord soldier around. It felt like something pushed itself into his middle finger through his skin. He pulls his hand out his pocket and held his hand in front of him. What he saw next horrified him: A mouse trapped that has been fitted with a small, but extremely lethal military type razor blade.

His middle finger was the victim out of all five of his fingers. Harkov grabbed the mouse trap and ripped it from his skin, forcing one more, but a much louder howl of agony from the Overlord scientist. The mousetrap was not the only thing that has been removed, his middle finger from the point where it was pierced came off with the mousetrap. Now he was left with only half a middle finger. The Overlord scientist could not handle anymore and ultimately passed out in front of their truck.

In the present time, he survived the loss of blood and bandages were wrapped around his middle finger. Instead of feeling anger like anybody else would feel, he felt apathetic about it. "Drake planted a mouse trap with a razor blade in my back pocket. That also means that she must've stolen the journal back when we weren't looking."

Harkov was present and said, "That means, the journal died with her in the tomb we gassed them in."

"Those pages in that journal contained a detailed description of how navigational systems like these ones work and this is one is badly damaged, it can barely connect the dots on the stars in the sky," Hamed reminded. "Looks like we're gonna have to send someone back to the tomb to retrieve Cassie's dead body and the journal."

"Why would that be?" asked Harkov. "The notes don't provide an exact location."

"But if we continue to use the navigational device while it's in this damaged state, it will take us too long to find Cleopatra's tomb. Using the notes, it will be a lot faster."

Harkov patted his friend on the back and turned to Zaman. "Permission to go back to Afghanistan to retrieve the journal and corpse of Cassie Drake?"

Zaman said nothing but leaned on the grille of the truck. Lachina came up from beside him and put her head on his shoulder. "What are you thinking, Farid?" He didn't respond, causing anxiety out of the three soldiers. "Come on, please tell us what you're thinking." Her pleas were ignored, but he eventually answered them.

"We're not going back to Afghanistan," he announced, stunning both Hamed and Harkov. "Reasons: Drake is no longer in Afghanistan because she is already here."

Hamed and Harkov look at each other in disbelief before slowly turning back to their officer. "How can you be so sure?" Hamed growled. "Wherever she is, take me to her so I can chop off _her_ fingers." The anger within him slowly rising but declined shortly after. "Just, how can you be so sure that she is not dead and not inside the gassed out tomb we buried her in?"

Zaman looked slowly redirected his gaze from the ground to Hamed in a menacing manner. "Why? WHY?!" Lachina, Harkov, and Hamed were startled. "It makes sense that she survived. I didn't know it at the time until we blew up the tomb that the tomb was located near the Hari, which is a river! The god that tomb was dedicated to was a god of water, so it makes sense that it would have water pathways leading to a nearby ocean. If Cassie Drake could sneak into buildings and escape with only one leg working, then she surely could have escaped through the water pathways and swim to shore after being washed up in the Hari."

"If she had the journal with her," Lachina began, "Then won't it get all wet and break apart in the water?"

"Unless it's waterproof which would be the most likely case. Cassie Drake must have sabotaged the only device that would've been able to lead us to the goddamn tomb, stole our goddamn journal, and now we are stuck here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a goddamn heatwave with a limited about of goddamn water. We need to track Cassie's last known location, which was the tomb, and track her last known location here in Saudi Arabia. If there is one thing I know for sure, as long as we still have the navigational device, we can still find the tomb, but it will take a probably a couple days, or hell, weeks even, to find the tomb. She is going to try and beat us there to it so she can destroy our prize inside."

"How are we going to find her?" Lachina asked.

"Harkov, call in Baseplate, tell him to send us names of people who bought a plane ticket in Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia. We need at least four passengers who purchased the same tickets at the same time or in a short time frame. Cross-reference those names or alias into buildings in every single hotel room in Saudi Arabia. I am aware that it will take time, but we have plenty of time."

* * *

Back in the city, Cassie and Derek were finishing packing up and waiting for the return of Omaria and Niko. When the duo came through the door, they both let out exhaled sighs with Cassie saying, "What the hell took you guys so long?"

Omaria answered. "Well, we were supposed to bring all the stuff upstairs, but when we realized that no sort of guns was allowed up here, we hid the equipment elsewhere. We stashed them nearby in the bushes near a jeep we rented. Also, we met a very interesting fella with no name." Cassie told Omaria to continue on with describing the interesting fella. "Well, he is a homeless man who knows his way around the Arabian desert and would happily be a guide for us. But, he wanted service."

Cassie winces as if she's been shot (which she has been before) and asked how much money they needed to pay the homeless man who was probably playing Americans and Egyptians for fools.

"Apples," Niko answered. "The man said that he would guide us out to the desert if we bought him a whole crate of apples. I'm for reals, I'm for reals."

Cassie and Derek were confused. Cassie spoke her confusion. "Wait for a second, this homeless man leaves all by himself in the streets, yet he knows his way around the Arabian desert, and he is willing to lead us all the way there, if, we buy him a whole crate of apples instead of handing him currency? What do we even need the guide for? We have a GPS tracker."

"GPSs don't work in the desert. Trust me, I've tried and I keep losing the signal. They're just as useless as that navigational triangle you just bent."

Cassie narrowed her eyes at Omaria and said, "How did you know? How'd you know that I bent the navigational system?"

"I was listening in on your conversation just a few minutes ago," Omaria answered.

Derek nervously said, "I figure they should at least know."

She shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so. But, coming back to the GPS-Homeless man thing…"

"What about it?"

"What's the homeless man's name? I feel better if I at least know what his name was?"

Omaria decided to introduce the homeless man to Cassie and Derek personally. "Follow me and you can ask him yourself." In reality, he failed to acquire his name and did not want to tell Cassie out of embarrassment. "He's really nice though, he cleaned my shoes. I called him 'Spit-Shine' afterward for obvious reasons. He did not seem to like it."

"Does he speak English?" Derek asked suddenly. "I at least want to know that much about the homeless man?"

"Why did you guys think that I told you to _ask_ him yourself, personally?"

Derek nodded and kept the silent the rest of the way here. He took out their GPS from Cassie's back pocket (getting turned on after accidentally brushing his hand against her rear end) and tested Omaria's theory that GPSs don't work in the desert. He never openly admitted it, but Omaria was right. The GPSs were just as useless as the navigational system that Cassie bent. Actually, these were more useless. They were as useless as using an empty beer bottle and empty soda can to see in the dark.

Since Cassie, herself was not testing out the GPS, he assumed that she trusted Omaria's judgment and went along with it. He placed the GPS tracker back in Cassie's back pocket as they walked. This time, he 'accidentally' brushed his hand against her rear end once again. Cassie felt his hand and smiled a little.

She actually liked when Derek showed her some kind of physical affection. Growing up, she hung out around boys more rather girls and none of those boys she hung around called her beautiful, which made her feel insecure about his beauty. Derek was the cure because of his physical affection towards her.

 _I haven't forgotten in Mesa Verde when you were staring in the 'right' direction._

In the elevator, they took a ride all the way down and walked out of the hotel. They acted casually as they passed through several security guards, except Omaria, who was trying her hardest to not look at them.

The jeep that they received was of American origin. It was a simple 4x4 Jeep with a winch attached to the grille. Given the current condition of the scrapes and dirty tires, the jeep is not new and has been used by someone else prior to today. This was a clear indication that Omaria and Niko went to the closest auto shop and bought the cheapest car there with whatever currency they had (and Omaria collected currency from different Middle Eastern countries). The gear was already loaded up, so Cassie and Derek loaded up the stuff they packed up. After that though, they took a few steps back and looked at Omaria and Niko with facial expressions that read, 'Really?'

"Shotgun," Niko said.

"I'm driving then," Cassie announced. Derek put his hand on her shoulder and beat her to the driver's seat. "You still not trusting me?"

"Why is Derek not trusting you to drive?" Niko asked on behalf of himself and Omaria.

"Okay, like a couple years ago," Cassie went on to explain. "I was driving myself and Derek in this jeep we rented in Cambodia to retrieve an ancient Khmer idol. We were chased by grave robbers for the idol in cars. I was driving and I almost went flying off a cliff. Actually, I hit a bump and Derek fell out and over the cliff, but managed to snag onto a branch and pull himself up. I took out the grave robbers and came back to pick him up. To this day, he still has not trusted me with driving."

"I'm driving," Derek said firmly. "If you want to drive, then you're gonna have to find your own jeep."

"Guys, can we just get in the vehicle so we can meet this homeless man?" Niko asked them politely.


	20. Ahmed

The gang let Omaria drive with Niko in shotgun and Cassie and Derek sitting in the back. They paid no attention to each other as they let Omaria swerve the jeep several times to get the hang of driving the jeep. When it got hot, they were forced to put the hood over their heads. Cassie was bored and wanted to take out her phone to play a game. She discovered that her phone died on her, but Derek still had a charger on him.

About thirty minutes later, they took a turn into a parking garage to this national museum of history. Cassie was having flashbacks of stealing from the museum, remembering how the guards shot her leg and numbed it. Omaria explained how she met the homeless man in this parking garage. The auto shop owner told Omaria and Niko that he did not have the jeep with him, but has it stored away at the parking garage of the national museum of history for Saudi Arabia. She went to pick up the car, taking a cab there, and meeting the old man who was trying to break the car down and remove parts that he could use to help with his survival. Instead of reporting him for petty theft when they found him, Omaria decided to give him a second chance.

He was living on the fourth level and waiting for them around the corner. Omaria parked the car in the same spot it was originally parked in and stepped out.

"Well, this place does not seem sketchy at all," Cassie said sarcastically. She scanned her environment to look for some homeless dude but found none. "You better not be conning us Omaria. You better not be setting up some kind of Jack the Ripper trap on us."

"Who's Jack the Ripper?" she asked Cassie.

Cassie decided it was better to just shut up. "Never mind. Okay then, where's the homeless man?"

"Right here," Niko pointed around the corner. "Over there in the trench coat."

From the shadows around the corner, slowly stepped out was a tall man in a trench coat with an old and worn out brown fedora over his head. The khaki pants he wore were ripped around the knee areas, exposing his bony legs, indicating that he had a lack of proper nutrition. His hands and fingertips especially were covered in grease from a car engine presumably and he just wiped it on his pants, leaving greasy handprints.

But when Cassie saw his face, she truly saw how homeless he had been. He really did indeed lack a proper nutritious meal and his skin was slowly sinking in, giving him a somewhat skeleton appearance. The whole physical appearance reminded Cassie of the time she spent time volunteering in Africa when she was twenty, helping out hungry children with bony appearances. Seeing the kids in such state brought tears into her face, making her grateful for all the things she had when she grew up; not that she wasn't grateful, she just didn't acknowledge it out loud often. She was lucky Derek was there to cry into his shoulder because she needed to be comforted by someone after seeing those hungry children, she needed someone to tell her that those children would survive and grow up.

"No need to fear me you Americans," the homeless Arabic man said in perfect English. He took several steps forward towards the group to get better looks at them. "I've eaten, just not in a while." He walked up to Cassie and eyed her from her head to toe. "Such a pretty girl." This had Derek clenching his hands into a fist. "My name is Ahmed." He held out a bony hand, understanding that Cassie was reluctant to shake his hand until he said, "No need to be afraid. I'm sixty-four, this was bound to happen at some point. Food deprivation just accelerated the process.

Cassie shook his hand soft, yet firmly. "Hello there, Ahmed. My name is Cassie Drake. You probably heard of me before."

The homeless man tried his hardest to think of a name that sounded like Cassie Drake. He has been living all over Saudi Arabia, his home base being the parking garage due to his love for history, yet he never heard of the name Cassie Drake.

"I am sorry, but the name Cassie Drake does not ring a bell."

Cassie's eyes widened in disbelief. "You've never heard of the legendary Cassie Drake? That's me."

Derek grasped Cassie shoulder softly and whispered in her ear that maybe he hasn't head of _Cassie Drake_. "Have you heard of Nathan Drake?"

Ahmed nodded slowly to the young man. "Why does it matter you boy? Is she in relation with Nathan Drake?"

"In a way, you could say." He shook the man's hand. "I'm Derek Lowell, I guess you already met my cousin Niko. Anyway, Cassie Drake is indeed in relation to Nathan Drake. She's his daughter. Sometimes, she's called the Daughter of Nathan Drake."

"Don't call me that," she scolded forcefully. "I hate having my title to be in the shadow of my father's."

"Oh, you are telling me that Miss Drake here is the daughter of Nathan Drake? Yeah right." He chuckled.

Cassie made sure to stay on topic. "Look Mister Ahmed or whatever your last name is, we need to get somewhere and you could play a big role in that factor. We are trying to look for his certain tomb in the middle of nowhere and seeing as we need a guide into the desert, we went to you. Omaria told us that you desire apples and we promise to buy your apples."

"I demand payment before services."

"We will buy you a whole crate of apples before you take us out and we will buy you two more crates of apples once we return. Do we have a deal?"

"Can I really trust you Americans?" Ahmed asked. "I mean, I love your music, but not your cuisines."

Cassie was slightly offended. "Asking about trust is something we should ask you because we are on your turf, yet you would do desperate things to survive. It's understandable, but trust will be required in this situation. If you trust us, then we can trust you."

* * *

A couple hours later, the group bought Ahmed a large crate of apples of all variants. Red, green, greenish-yellow, and even paid for a dozen water bottles as 'compensation' for himself. Cassie and her group brought their own water and got into the jeep to start their drive out into the middle of nowhere. Cassie trusted Ahmed with the journal but was still hesitant to risk letting a stranger read the coordinates to an ancient ruler. He sat in the passenger seat with Derek driving. Even though there were guns in the jeep, Ahmed ignored them completely. She watched Ahmed like a hawk as he guided Derek through the desert.

"I'm hungry," Niko complained as she was squeezed in between Cassie and Omaria. He was tempted to reach out and grab an apple from the crate for himself. Cassie just smacked his hand away.

"Those are for Ahmed, leave those alone."

"Then what are we supposed to eat then?"

Omaria spoke, "I am getting kinda hungry kinda. Did you bring any food from the guest room or something?"

Cassie put on a wide smile. "Is an elephant heavy?"

Omaria stuttered a bit before saying, "Yeah…"

"Do apples fall far from the tree?"

"I guess not unless it rolls down a hill."

Cassie thought of one final question. "If water...wet?"

Omaria did not come up with an immediate answer. Whenever she thought of water, she thought of how she could not swim. Even Niko was stumped by this answer. Derek was not paying attention. Omaria desperately tried to find an answer, and finally came up with one answer. "Yes, water is wet."

Cassie shook her head. "Water isn't wet."

"Well, water is wet in nature," Niko argued. "Water is wet because when you put your hand in the water, then it becomes wet even in water."

"Not true, that is due to the water temperature. Wet is an adjective to describe how something feels. Water in nature is not wet."

"Actually," Derek spoke after hearing enough of their arguing to figure out what their conversation was about. "Cassie is right. Water is not wet because when I dip my hand in water it does not feel wet, only cold."

"See that," Cassie high-fived him. "He's got brains. Water is not wet."

"But what about when you're in the shower and the water starts falling on your body? Would your body be wet during showering or after?"

"What does this have to do with anything?" Omaria scolded.

"I'm glad you asked because I brought some sweet and sour potato chips from our guest room. It's in my bag. Feel free to grab as much as your body can consume." She grabbed her bag and passed out the Lay's potato chips around. "You want some Derek?" He said nothing and blindly grabbed some, keeping one arm on the wheel. "Your welcome."

"Thank you," Derek said too late. "What else is there to debate about?"

"I can literally think of dozens of things."

She thought of one subject she saw on a funny show she watched growing up. Sadly, the show ended before she was even born but there was one episode in season four where the group of main characters were arguing over the correct usage of the term who versus whom. "How about the correct usage of the term whomever and whoever?"

Omaria and Niko looked at her in disbelief. Not Derek for obvious reasons for him being the driver. Ahmed stayed completely silent. "When is the proper way to use whom and who in a sentence? Anybody know the answer?"

" 'Whom' isn't a real word," Omaria said. "It's a made-up word used to make the American language sound sophisticated. Ask anyone back home and they will tell you that 'whom' is a completely fake word."

Niko had something different in mind. "Well, in this one court show I saw, this one boy was pressed with charges for stealing a comic book and he looked up and said, 'Are you sure you sent the right person?' His father asked him to whom he was talking to, so 'whom' is not a made-up word. I just don't know when to use it."

" 'Whom' is like an extra appendage that you don't need. 'Who' seems like a pretty perfect word for a direct or indirect object of the sentence."

Omaria asked, "How do you even use the word, 'whom?' "

"The word 'whom,' is used to refer to as the object of a verb," Cassie spoke. "The word 'who' refers to the subject of the sentence. 'Whom' refers to the indirect object of the sentence."

"Why don't you give us an example then?" Derek asked snidely.

"How about, 'who is driving the car' and 'to whom is driving the car?"

"Not good enough, Cass."

Their whole debate on the proper usage of the word ended with Cassie deciding that this argument was a bad idea and wished she kept her mouth shut. Niko, Omaria, and Derek continued to argue, all three of them looking at Cassie for examples of how to use 'who' or 'whom' in a sentence. She believed that 'whom' was a proper word, so Niko was on her side. Derek and Omaria were on the opposite side that 'whom' was not a real word. Since she didn't want chaos to break out, she stayed neutral and answered questions regarding both who and whom.

Just thirty miles behind the group, Overlord was waiting patiently for Baseplate to report back with their data on Cassie and her group's current position. Zaman's patience was slowly wearing off, driving him to grab one of the Overlord soldiers and beat him mercilessly into the grille of his truck. The soldier received a heavy concussion and Zaman quickly apologized for his actions, saying that he was out of control on that one. The soldier had to be fixed by Hamed, who was still apathetic. Baseplate called Zaman and said, "I have Cassie's Drake's last known location."

"Good."


	21. Primordial

"Have you cross-referenced their location?" Zaman asked Baseplate.

"Affirmative, we have a vehicle spotted out in the desert over satellites, over."

Zaman smiled at the answer, Lachina's head was still on Zaman's shoulder, smiling affectionately. "You hear that, Farid? We're about to get back on track with Drake, Al-Bashir, and the Lowells."

Zaman nodded to her. "We sure are. Once we get ahold of the virus, then we will be victorious." Several seconds later, Zaman's technological wrist mounted data pad and live footage of a vehicle from an overhead shot driving through the desert is displayed. Cassie and her friends.

The thought of taking down Cassie and her friends brought a smile of sadism to Zaman's face. It was nothing personal he had against the young adventurers. This was all business for the greater good. In the eyes of Zaman, taking over the world with the only group Overlord as the single and primary government was the most moral thing possible. Modern day governments could not make a difference anywhere. It's been two hundred and sixty years since the United States was founded and still they could not solve problems in their own land, so they went to go solve problems somewhere else. Things had gone from bad to worse since then. If Overlord was able to take over the world with them being the only available government, then they would greatly deduct the war, poverty, disease, famine, economic collapse on a great scale. In order for them to do that, they needed the virus that laid dormant inside Antony and Cleopatra's tomb.

If Cassie and Derek hadn't been involved in this adventure, then they would've been spared from Overlord in the future once they conquered the world. It was nothing personal, only business, but now that they are in the way, they are their business.

"Everybody, get in your vehicles, we are rolling out." Zaman counted fifty soldiers total including himself and decided that it would be enough. "I'll send everyone a tracking image on their wrist datapad. Get in your vehicles and make sure that your guns are loaded."

"Hell yeah," Khaled exclaimed.

"Time to bring the pain in the game," shouted Harkov at the top of his lungs.

Lachina removed her head from Zaman's shoulder and started climbing in the big truck and into the passenger seat. Zaman took the role as driver. The jeep beside them was manned by Harkov and Hamed.

"Baseplate, this 584901, thanks a lot for the assist. 584901 out." He steps on the gas, starts the engine, and drives off, the seven vehicles behind him following very closely. He risks glances at the beautiful Lachina as he drives. He smiled when she noticed him and she put a hand on his kneecap, in a nonchalant way rather than an affectionate way.

"What are you thinking?" Lachina asked nonchalantly.

"Nothing, just how pretty you are. That and having you as my secretary as soon as we conquer the world with me as president of the Middle East while our Leader is...Leader."

* * *

Back with Cassie and her group.

"How long till we get there?" Niko asked impolitely to Ahmed. "We've been driving for a long time in this hot desert with a limited amount of water and apples that are getting an all-over tan."

Cassie rubbed her head, wiping the dry sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Be very patient, Niko." Her voice calms as if she was incapable of being annoyed. "Adventure takes patience and Ahmed here said that we would be there in no time. Have patience."

Niko moaned and groaned in a frustrated manner like a spoiled kid. "I have no patience."

Omaria gave a laugh that sounded like huffing and puffing. "You guys would never last out here in the desert." She leaned back in her seat, her face turned towards the sun but her eyes closed. "I grew up in the desert, without water and only a limited amount of roof over my head. I still made it as an Egyptologist and you don't hear me complaining. You guys are sissies."

Cassie glared at Omaria with a serious look. "We are sissies? You're the one who has a spare water bottle inside their breast pocket putting on your forehead when none of us are looking."

"Can we please stop with this godawful arguing?" Derek shouted, his knuckles turning bone white from clutching the wheel tightly. "Ahmed here is trying to think and you guys keep complaining and shooting him down like a bird. "Just shut your pieholes and let me drive here until we get to the Tomb." His jaw was hurting from clutching it. "And because of this nasty heatwave, as soon as we get back after being forced to drive in the desert for a couple hours, someone is buying me a strawberry shortcake."

"D-Man has a point." Cassie's nod to his comment was slow but sure. "As soon as we get back, we buy a strawberry shortcake, and smashed it on top of Derek's forehead and eat it off his hair with no spoon." To distract herself, she gently removed her journal from her back pocket with a pencil. She flipped to an empty page and started drawing while in a moving vehicle. She drew sketches of beautiful Derek from her angle as he drove. She drew an ugly, monstrous sketch of Omaria, but a beautiful, angelic sketch of Niko.

As for Ahmed, she drew him as a demonic being. She flipped to the next empty page and started drawing pictures of the most notable Overlord members liked Zaman, Hamed, Harkov, Lachina, and Khaled. Wrote notes down next to each one, saying how Zaman is arrogant, Hamed is a mad scientist, Harkov a sociopath, Lachina a slut in tights, and Khaled a quiet coward.

When she ran out of ideas to draw, she wrote down theories on what could be in the lost Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra. _Gold, jewels, diamonds, water, fish._ One idea that caused her to silently smile with wide eyes was…

 _Mummies._

* * *

About ten minutes later, the bumpy hills had become steeper. Cassie's eyes opened and she looked forward. Derek was driving down a hill and a huge sandstorm was about to engulf. Cassie lunged towards Derek, putting a hand on his shoulder, and saying, "What the hell are you doing? You're going to drive us in the storm."

Derek didn't look at Cassie, instead of looking at Ahmed for guidance. "I'm just following what Mr. Magoo over there is telling me where to drive." Ahmed inhaled a deep breath, reaching blindly for a red apple and taking a bite into it.

"Trust, you Americans. Trust me." Ahmed's slow and steady voice made Cassie less apprehensive.

She looked down at the clutch and licked her lips. "That's the sandstorm that I was talking about earlier."

"Ah, so you knew there was a sandstorm a present? If you were expecting, then why did you start panicking?"

"I wasn't panicking, I was...making sure that Derek was paying attention to driving and not about to run us off a cliff."

Derek groaned and corrected her, saying that _she_ almost drove them off a cliff. "And I'm the one who fell out of the jeep."

"You won't just let it go?" Ahmed has had enough. "Hey, you guys wanted me to take you to these coordinates and this is what I am doing. These coordinates lead into the sandstorm so all of you better stop whining over who is a terrible driver and who is drawing creepy sketches of her friends."

Cassie's eyes widened, her face burning from blushing. "How the hell did you know I was drawing sketches of you guys?" She decided to ignore them and put on her goggles that Omaria bought for them. "Omaria, Niko, Derek, Ahmed, put on your goggles."

Everyone reached into their individual bags and took out a pair of goggles. They took in deep breaths as the jeep got closer and closer to the sandstorm. Looking at the towering sandstorm, Cassie had a sudden flashback. It was back when she was nineteen years old, looking for her Uncle Sam in Iceland while being chased by five Neo-Nazis. She was looking for the lost city of Ultima Thule and the Neo-Nazis kidnapped Derek and Uncle Sam and tried to coerce Cassie into looking for the substance known as Vril to sell to the highest bidder. Two of the Neo-Nazis named Franz and Zelig had Cassie and Derek in a truck with several Icelandic bandits, but Cassie and Derek managed to escape while Franz and Zelig were crushed to death in an avalanche.

Cassie blocked out that memory to focus completely on the sandstorm happening in front of her right now. She puts her scarf up to her mouth, takes in a deep breath, and they drive into the sandstorm.

The sandstorm hit them like a heavy hurricane. Cassie breathed through her desert scarf and peeked through the lenses in her goggles. She looked from her left and right, totally swarmed in a storm of flying sand.

"What's the plan now?" Derek asked Ahmed through his scar. "We are literally flying blind."

Ahmed retained his cool composure. "The coordinates are straight ahead, so there is nothing to fear."

Derek drove the jeep ahead a few more meters before finally pulling up and giving themselves a chance to look around their environment and scan.

Cassie jumped out the jeep and hard on the sandy ground. She paced around like a little girl, shrugging like how the Joker did in _The Dark Knight._ "Okay, so we are in the sandstorm, so I guess we start looking for the Tomb."

"That would be the plan." Derek retorted sarcastically. "Let's get to it. Ahmed, come on." Derek hopped out of the vehicle and started following Cassie. Niko and Omaria escorted Ahmed with his crate of apples in Cassie and Derek's direction. Before she left, Cassie had taken her Beretta 92FS with her just in case those Overlord soldiers were on their tail.

Cassie kept her eyes open through her goggles and constantly checked all around her. This sandstorm would be the perfect place to sneak up on someone. She ejected her magazine to make sure all bullets were loaded before she slapped the magazine back into place.

Cassie's foot landed in a ditch. She was caught off guard and pulled her leg out, but not before losing her balance. She tumbles forward and hits her head. "Ow," she moans. Her forehead felt like it had been hit with a hammer, she could already feel a bump on her forehead. She squeezes her eyes tight and winces in pain. "What the hell did I hit my head against?" She looks in front of her to discover a wall. The pain instantly disappears and her eyes direct upwards. A tall building structure with hieroglyphs dominated her in height.

"Wow, holy hell," she curses under her breath in amazement. "Derek? Pinch me; make sure that this is not a mirage." She figured that she was hallucinating because the pain in her forehead was gone, until Derek flicked her on the forehead, bringing the pain back. "Ow."

"It's not a mirage, Cassie," Niko explains to her. "This thing is real and without a doubt, is the thing that we are looking for. Omaria nods and explains how she is seeing the exact same thing. Ahmed was explaining the same thing but in his own native language.

Cassie and the group backed up several feet to get a much better view of the building structure in front of them. The Tomb had a sphinx figure on top with numerous statues carved beside it representing Egyptian mythological figures like Horus, Tefnut, Sobek, Ra. The doorway was made of pure gold that had been rusted due to prolonged exposure in the sandstorm, but the hieroglyphs on the door remained the same. Cassie holstered her weapon and took several steps forward towards the hieroglyphs on the door. "Well, this is certainly radiant. The hieroglyphs on here are primordial, door crafted in deliquesced gold. Structure of the door seems almost clasped to the point of impregnable. I gotta hand it to the workers for their proletarian."

"Man, you are using such big words, it's almost like you are trying to sound smart."

Cassie grinned and looked at Derek after he spoke his comment. "Derek, if you were so smart, then you should know what these big words mean. Especially primordial because that is what you are, buddy."


	22. Nickel-And-Dime

Omaria had mentioned to Cassie that she bought grenades, but they were still in the jeep. Cassie told everyone to stay back and ran back to the jeep, jogging through the sandstorm, barely seeing two feet in front of her. She left the four friends behind. When she made it back to the jeep, she circled to the back of the jeep and reached into the bag for one of the bags. She grasps a yellow travel sized bag by the strap, lifts it with one hand, and unzips the front zipper. Inside the bag, was an ammo box full of grenades.

She tosses the yellow bag back in the seat she was sitting in and opens up the ammo box of grenades. She takes one grenade, careful not to pull the pin and begins walking back. She feels something grip the back of her hair and tighten. She grabs the back of her head in pain and is yanked backward. A hand covers his mouth and nose, breaking off her breathing. She yells through the hand and elbows the person grabbing her.

From the sandstorm, in front of her, a silhouette emerges and once it gets close, it is a soldier in an Overlord's uniform. The one holding Cassie was also an Overlord soldier.

Overlord had truly found them, caught up to them in a short time span. Given as to how only two soldiers are present, the sandstorm had truly separated the soldiers.

Derek was the first name that came to her mind as soon as she saw the knife unholstered from the soldier's hip. The Knife Soldier thrust his blade towards Cassie's stomach. She caught his wrist with the knife with one hand and did everything in her power to keep the blade away. She was not overly muscular, but she had excellent upper body strength considering that she could climb dozens of surfaces. If she had enough upper body strength to climb dozens of surfaces without the use of safety equipment, then she can totally hold off two hands trying to push a blade into her belly with one hand. She wanted to reach for her holstered Beretta 92FS, but her arm was preoccupied.

Cassie recognized that she was next to her jeep. The Hostage Soldier was causing pain to Cassie by wrapping his elbow around her throat. Cassie used her free hand to reach into the jeep and look for some kind of weapon. Her hand reached into the yellow bag she threw into the seat. The bag was still unzipped and she reached for a weapon. The ammo box with grenades was out of the bag, but there were already other weapons. Her fingers touched something metallic and she wrapped her fingers around it. Her thumb pressed against a square-like button. Her fingers moved up the metallic device until she felt two sharp blades at the end that were shaped like a curved moon. That's when she realized what object it was.

The shock stick.

Omaria had bought a shock stick with them. She instantly came up with a plan: Shock herself because both soldiers had physical skin contact with her. If she shocks herself, the electricity would flow through her and electrocute them as well. But the one with the blade, because he was holding a metal object in his bare hands, would suffer the most damage and pain out of the two. She moved her fingers back to the square-like button, gripped the shock stick, and pushed the button down.

 _This is going to be very painful, I hope my high pain tolerance will get me through this._

Once the shock stick hit full power, she shocked herself in the side. She yelled in pain through her teeth. The Hostage Soldier jumped back, letting go of Cassie and falling to the ground. The Knife Soldier experienced the most pain. He jumped high in the air, landing on his side in pain and rolling over, clutching his hand, the hilt of the knife burned to his skin. Cassie collapsed to her knees, salvia uncontrollably drooling down her jaw.

She looked at her side and realized that she still had her pistol holstered. That was a metal object, yet she still experienced the least amount of pain. _Then again, knife guy had a metal object touched to his bare skin. Son of an inept, plaintive, and nickel-and-dime bitch, that shit hurt like a human head being crushed a crocodile's mouth._

Cassie clutched her skin and laid flat on her stomach. The soldier with the knife was twitching in pain and tried to remove the knife from his hand. His attempts to remove the knife from his hand resulted in his skin being peeled off, exposing his muscle. A whole chunk of the skin on his hand was removed and he howled in pain. He glared at Cassie in anger. She swung the shock stick like a baseball bat with it charged at his jaw. He fell over, twitching.

Cassie jams the shock stick into his belly while his hand still had the knife in it. Cassie shocked the soldier with everything until his body went limp, his heart stopped beating. "Wow, what happened to your eyebrows man?" she joked nonchalantly.

The soldier that was chocking her kicked her in the back. Cassie maintained balance and took out her Beretta 92FS and shoots the soldier in the forehead. "Never mess with Cassie Drake."

Derek already hightailed it over to the jeep and landed between Cassie on his knees. "What the hell happened here?"

"Oh man, I had a one-night stand with this guy with the knife in his hand and he got mad that I didn't give him my number so he came here to kill me with his little brother. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK HAPPENED!?"

"Overlord, what the hell they found us." Derek helps Cassie up to her feet. A soldier ran towards from the sandstorm. Derek noticed and shot him in the head with his Caracal F pistol. "Oh, like a pro."

Two more soldiers came from the sandstorm, Cassie killed them both with her Beretta. Both went down with gunshots in their foreheads. "We are getting surrounded; we gotta get out of here."

More and more trucks began appearing from the sandstorm. Derek, being observant, counted at least three jeeps. Cassie shot at the vehicles, the bullets ricocheting off and shooting back, but none hitting her. Before she runs off, she runs back to the ammo box. Derek saw the ammo box of grenades and continued on shooting at the Overlord soldiers. Cassie grabbed the ammo box, placed her index and middle finger on a pin, and yanked it. Derek yelled at her to do whatever she was about to do because they were becoming overwhelmed and the soldiers had automatic rifles. Once Cassie pulled the pin, she quickly closed the lid and flung the box towards the three jeeps with the numerous soldiers as quickly as she could. "Here comes the heaters!"

The three jeeps and twelve soldiers blew up in a big explosion. Cassie and Derek barely managed to hit the deck in time. Cassie and Derek were huddled close to each other on the ground. Cassie still had the one grenade she pulled out from earlier. She was going to use that grenade to blow up the Tomb entrance and seal it up for good. "Wow, that was a cool explosion." Cassie laughed. "They're gonna need a new paint job."

Thousands of bullets per second were fired at them. A new jeep fitted with an MG-225 ( **Turret** **in** **their** **time** **period** ). Cassie and Derek ran back towards the Tomb, sprinting and dashing just to avoid getting shot by the MG-225. The rain of bullets slowly came to a stop as the jeep sped towards the duo.

The MG-225 didn't shoot at Cassie and Derek, even though they were within range. The jeep driver accelerated and ran over Cassie. She flew onto the hood of the moving vehicle. Cassie's head smashed through the window. Derek jumped onto the side of the jeep and bit into the gunner's leg like a piranha.

Cassie fell into the passenger seat on her back with her head hitting against the passenger door. She groans and ignores the pain to kick the driver in the face. The driver hit his head against the center of the wheel and his foot unintentionally pressed down harder on the gas. The car sped up.

The gunner held onto the gun for dear life while Derek continued to bite him hard in his leg, actually causing him to bleed. To make sure he doesn't fly off the vehicle, he gripped the back head of the seat behind the driver's seat.

"How does my foot taste?" Cassie darted towards the driver. She aimed for the wheel and tried to shake the jeep. She was not looking where she was driving but once the sand cleared in front of her, she saw that they were aiming for the entrance of the Tomb. Cassie and the driver gasp and work together to stop the vehicle. Cassie pulled the emergency brake while the driver stomped on the brake. The jeep skidded in the sand to a sudden stop, but not in time for the jeep to crash through the wall as if was never there. The gunner did not duck in time and he got his head chopped off like paper when his head hit the wall. Derek was safe because he was still lying on his belly, hanging on for dear life.

Inside the tomb, the decelerated jeep crashed into the wall, but this time, it did not go through. The driver of the jeep smashed his head against the dashboard, emitting a low scream. Cassie went flying out of her seat and onto the hood, stopping just inches away before she could hit her head against the wall. Derek slid forward and landed in the back of the jeep.

"Everybody okay?" Cassie inquired as she sank in her seat. She looked at the driver and tapped him on the shoulder. He was as still as a mannequin. "Hey there, bud?" The face of the corpse fell on her lap. "Well, you're dead." She pushes the head off her lap and turns to Derek. She notices the headless corpse beside the turret. "Hey, Derek? I think we got a headless horseman with us."

"More like a Headless Specter," Derek mock commented. "Where's Omaria, Niko, and Ahmed?"

"Over here," Niko shouted upon climbing through the hole in the entrance. "Guys, there's an army of Overlord soldiers out there, we gotta get out of here."

Cassie opened her mouth to say something before she spotted an Overlord soldier at the hole in the entrance. She raises her gun and shoots him dead in the head. More and More soldiers replaced the dead soldier afterward.

"There's too many!" Omaria shouted and backed away.

Derek grabbed the grip of the MG-225 and aimed it at the wall. "Time to bring the rain to their parade." He aimed at the soldiers and squeezed the triggers. Thousands of rounds blasted away at the incoming Overlord soldiers.

Cassie jumped out the vehicle and ran with the others following. She stopped just a few feet away from the jeep and called out to Derek. "Let's go!"

"You guys go on, I'll catch up."

"Derek, man!"

"You have only one grenade, use it to blow up whatever Overlord is looking for."

Cassie was about to argue until Omaria and Ahmed pulled her back. Niko stayed behind. "I'm not going to leave you, cuz."

"Get out of here, Nee."

"Family helps each other out."

"You want to help out, Nee, then look for an ammo box."

Derek and Niko held off the seemingly endless amount of Overlord soldiers for as long as they could.

Cassie and the other two came to a stop at the end of a pitch black hallway and took out their lights. The room filled up with a long hallway with walls filled with hieroglyphs. Types of hieroglyphs that neither Cassie nor Omaria have seen before.

Cassie only had one thing to say: "I guess this is what the lost Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra looks like."


	23. Guidance

Like a curious little girl, Cassie shined her light across every single hieroglyph. Ahmed and Omaria were already far ahead of her and waiting for her to catch up. Cassie's fingers rubbed against the hieroglyphs carefully. She was amazed that no dust that has fallen upon the ancient symbols. When she moved forward, she flashed her flashlight ahead of her. She felt like the flashlight in her hand was unnecessary because of her natural night vision. _A flashlight could come in handy I guess._

Catching up to her friends, she quietly hummed one of her favorite songs by Eminem: _Venom._

Her flashlight shined across one symbol at ground level that stood out from the others. Cassie snapped her head towards the symbol and crouched down to the ground with her head several inches from the wall. The symbol was that of a sarcophagus with an ancient pharaoh inside. She read the inscription alongside the symbol and traced the symbols gingerly with her fingertips.

"Why is this symbol all the way at the bottom?" she inquired to herself. "Why not elevated?" She uses her left hand to reach into her back pocket and remove her journal. She flips several pages to hieroglyphs on the Triangle navigational device that she took. One of the symbols on the device was the of Cleopatra and her lover, Antony. "Okay, let's see what we got here my little pharaoh fellow."

Cassie had paid closed attention when it came to notes. The inscription beside the pharaoh meant guidance. Cassie chuckled and patted the symbol. The symbol retracted back into the wall like a button. Cassie jumps to her feet, dropping her flashlight and journal in the process. The flashlight beamed aimed down the hall she was just walking.

The ceilings came crashing down to the floor. Cassie's eyes widen in terror as she looks up. The ceiling above her was about to descend and crush her. She yanks her flashlight and journal from the ground and runs for her life. Omaria and Ahmed turned around and saw Cassie run away from the dropping ceilings. They were already ahead of her (literally) and ran. They ran short of breaths, resulting in them stopping at a junction. Omaria and Ahmed just spontaneously run down the right path. Cassie was about to join them because, behind her, the walls kept on descending down and trying to crush her.

Just as she was about to turn right, the wall came down on her. She was quick enough to predict it and dived towards the left path and out the way, separated from Omaria and Ahmed. "Crap, ceilings just keep coming down!"

She pulls herself up and continues running down the dark hallway, sweat beginning to mend to her forehead. "Can't stop running!"

Her life did not flash before her very eyes because she has escaped death more than once. She was immortal and was going to survive this life and death adventure. _Plus, I have Cleopatra guiding me. I hope._

Just when she thought she was out of breath, the ceilings ceased from coming down and the walls started to enclose together like two pieces of bread and Cassie was the PB&J. She increased speed and she just let her legs carry her off. More and more walls were attempting to close in on her and there was very little that she could do. "This is the end," she dreaded. "No, it's not; I'm immortal."

As her luck would have it, a door at the very end of the hallway was opening up slowly, letting a bright light shine out through the doors and briefly blind her in the face. She holds a hand up to block out the bright light and continued to run. "Shit, there's my window!" She sprinted like the fastest kid on the track team. The doors were so dangerously close to crushing her.

"Almost there," she grunted. The doors opened with the doors seven feet apart and then started to close again. "Are you kidding me?!"

She refuses to take any chances and leaps as far as she could upon reaching the door. Her slim body slid through the closing doors and she landed painfully on her stomach and skidded across the floor, her shirt ripping and exposing her first-degree burned belly. "Ow...I spent a couple hours in the desert, tanning like an apple, and now I get first-degree burns on my bellybutton." Her hand was cold against her warm skin, making her wince in discomfort. "Damn it."

Now she took the opportunity to see where she was. Her eyes looked up and she saw a bridge in front of her surrounded by brownish water. The bridge room was lit up with a series of dangling lanterns on the ceiling. Along the walls were ancient Egyptian figures that Cassie has never seen before. The bridge stretched as far as five hundred feet, which to her, was as far as she could see. "What is this place? The pathway that Cleopatra wants me to take?"

She rubs her belly gingerly as if she was ravenous, plus looking back to see the door she just slid through closed completely. "Of course the doors close. We don't close our doors back home and then all of a sudden, every door we come across gets closed. I walked in on my parents one time and I still can't burn the image out my cranium." She started forward. "Let's see what else Cleopatra the 'Guidance' has in store for us. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of get-lost-in-my-elaborate-labyrinth-maze-and-die-by-poison."

The only sounds that she heard as she walked across the bridge were the light tapping sounds of her sneakers against the brick bridge. Listening to nothing but silence made Cassie feel uneasy, due to the fact that she usually spends dangerous adventures like this with her friend. _I hope you got out in time, Derek._ The sense of her heart beating in her chest at the thought of Derek being killed by Overlord almost paralyzed her in sadness. She squeezes her eyes shut and walks forward.

Now that she thought about it, walking down this seemingly endless bridge was not so bad after all. She got herself to talk to and no one can disagree with her. She just hummed her favorite songs as she walked across the bridge without a care in the world. She paid attention as she started singing her favorite song out loud, stopping both in song and track as her foot neared a diamond-shaped block on the bridge. She leans down and wipes the dust of the brick, getting a better picture. She edges around the brick were hollow, which gave a good indication that this brick sinks into the floor upon weight increase.

"Not gonna do that," she conversed to herself. "If there is one thing Indiana Jones has taught me, it's to never step on a brick that sinks into the floor." She stiffened her stance, and stepped over the diamond shape brick, only to almost step on another. She realized her mistake and redirected her foot, only to fall off balance. She staggered forward and her fall was aiming towards the water. She stomps her two feet in front of her, which causes her momentum to boomerang back, resulting in her falling on the seat of her pants. "Owie." She sank slightly into the floor, horror striking her like a baseball bat when she realized she felt right on the diamond-shaped brick. "Oh, crap." She jumps to feet and scans around her, searching for traps trying to kill her. "Nothing? Well, that's a relief."

A fire arrow shot from the wall and across the bridge. The intense heat caused her to jump back as the arrow missed her face by inches and fell into the water. "Oh...hell...no…"

Dozens of bricks shaped like diamonds now covered the entire bridge from this point on. It would be suicide to run across. She wondered how she was still alive and looked at her feet. Standing on a red triangle shaped brick brought her mind to a confused state, but a relieved state as standing on a red triangle did not seem to do anything and was big enough for her two close feet to fit on. She assumed she was out of luck until dozens of other red triangles ahead of her caught her eye, each one being individually alone an equal distance apart. "Wow, Cleo sure did have a 'thang' for triangles: The safety steps, the navigational system...the whole thing makes me wonder what her actual head is shaped like."

She sprang herself to the next triangle only nine feet away. This was going to be a difficult task because she could not jump as far as Derek, let alone a running head start. "Like hopscotch."

She played the whole game of hopscotch until she reached an endpoint for the 'dangerous shaped bricks' game. "Back on regular square shaped bricks that can't do me no harm/" However, she doubted that would be the last of the traps.

She continued to move across the bridge, keeping her eyes out for other traps on the ground. Reaching the half-way point across the bridge, she starts jogging to save time. Her keen senses were telling her that there was something up with Overlord, Omaria, Ahmed, Derek, and Niko. She starts picking up the pace faster, evolving from jogging to running to eventually sprinting. She still wasn't at the end of the bridge and already she began facing more traps. Now spikes started shooting out of tiny circled-shaped holes in the floor and towards the ceiling. Cassie maneuvered from left to right like a truck to avoid stepping on the holes shooting out the spikes.

"Jesus Christ, when does it end?" She was narrowly stabbed in the crotch area by one of the spikes. She made the mistake of jumping over a spiked hole and luck saved her at the very last second, barely missing the spike by half an inch. "Oh, crap, that was close."

She still had enough energy within her to keep running. She felt weightless as she ran, which was the only thing that was preventing her from stopping to take a breath. However, the more she ran, the more dangerous the traps evolved. Individual bricks were falling from the bridge and into the water. Cassie adapted. Her senses detected which brick would fall and which would stay stable. She relied purely on instinct on this trial.

Cassie's left foot stomped onto a loose brick and her leg collapsed through the hole, almost falling through, barely grabbing onto a handhold and pulling herself back up with one hand. "Idiot," she cursed to herself. "Idiot, stay off the falling bricks." She slapped the dust off of her kneecaps, some dust getting in her face and started walking, then jogging, running, and finally sprinting once again. Only two hundred feet of land to cover and she would be at the end.

Now Cassie's last trial of dangerous traps were boulders releasing themselves from the ceiling and falling onto the bridge. Cassie gasps in terror and dodges the falling stones, daring not to get hit by one, unless she wanted instant death. As the boulders started falling onto the bridge, the bridge itself was beginning to weaken, prompting Cassie to speed up faster. She focused on everything she had on sprinting as if her life depended on it. When one boulder almost fell on her shoulder and crushed her collarbone, she sprinted almost like Quicksilver.

A huge twenty-foot boulder fell down onto the bridge about twenty feet away and that portion of the bridge broke off and fell into the water. Cassie gasps in shock once more slowly come to a stop as the boulders behind her stop and were about to throw a fit, until her eyesight picked up on an exposed beam overhead the cut off bridge. "While hello there."

She grabs her grappling hook, webs it out, and swings across. She reached her left hand out, grabbed the very edge of the bridge and pulled herself up with one hand once again. She loosens the grappling hook from the beam and coils it up. Now that she was finally at the end of the bridge, there was no need to run so she let her chest rise and fall and air entered her lungs. She planted her grappling hook around her belt loop and approached the door at the end of the bridge.

"What do we have here?" Her gaze traveled up the door to two red levers beside it. They were both ten feet apart, but they looked like they had to be pulled at the same time in order for the door to open. And it was just her. "What the hell, how am I supposed to open a two-man door when it is just me?"


	24. Say Hello To My Mummy

Cassie had one idea on how to pull both levers with just herself. She still had her grappling hook and just used it. She removed it from her belt loop and went to the right lever. She took the end of the grappling hook, being careful of the sharp parts, and wraps the hook around the red lever. She tested the rope to make sure that it was secure and slowly walked back towards the other level, making sure to maintain her grip on the rope. She grabbed the left lever with her right hand, smiling to herself for thinking of an ingenious plan.

"Alright, on the count of three, we pull together."

A hand surfaced from the water beneath the bridge. A hand wrapped in linen cloth stained with a brownish substance: Dried blood. The surfaced hand reached out further and the arm revealed itself, completely wrapped in linen cloth. The rest of the body surfaced from the water and reached towards the bridge. The arm extended like Mr. Fantastic far enough to the point that it was able to grab hold of the bridge and pull itself up. It was soaking wet by the time it climbed onto the bridge and faced Cassie with a glare.

"One, two, t-" she stops mid-sentence. Her eyes open like an owl and her head slowly rotate to a ninety-degree turn. In her eyes, she noticed an entire being wrapped from its head to toe in linen cloth and the only thing exposed from underneath the cloth was its right eye, which was void of humanity. Cassie's mouth slightly opens to let out a breath of air whilst her entire body remained frozen in astonishment. "Mummy," she quietly called. "A real mummy."

She was so astonished that she forgot that she was gripping the lever and rope in her hand. Like ice, the rope slips from her fingertips and her fingers slid off the lever. "I knew mummies were real." The mummy looked at her with intensity, acting almost as a sentry to make sure that she wouldn't go anywhere. Cassie took her red pocket-sized journal that she has been using on this adventure out her pocket and sketched the mummy in her journal. Once she finished, she put her journal away and silently approached the mummy with caution, her hand on grenade clipped to her pocket just in case. "Hello there. I'm Cassie Drake, what's your name?"

As expected, the mummy said nothing.

"Well, I'm not a grave robber; bet you get a lot of those around here." The mummy still said nothing and stared at her with a blank expression on its face. The mummy reminded Cassie of The Shape- or Michael Myers -and that was making her feel somewhat anxious. She tried approaching the mummy to see if it could talk. "I'm here to try and save the world and your queen from a group called Overlord. I need to get this door open so I can stop them. Can you please help me out here?"

Nothing.

"It's all right. I'll just get to it myself. Stupid mummy." She mutters a curse under her breath and retreats back to her original position. The mummy's exposed eye narrowed at Cassie when she picked up the rope and put her hand on the lever. The mummy deduced what was going on and it was enraged.

"NOOO!"

Cassie froze in terror at hearing the mummy speak for the first time in thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands of years most likely. Cassie dropped the rope once again and backed away as far as could to get away from the mummy. The monster finally took action. It went limping forward and towards Cassie, one hand reaching out to grab her as if she was a bag of candy. Cassie raised her pistol at his forehead and pulled the trigger, expecting to see brain matter. The bullet just melted through linen clothing and hit the fall at the door at the far end of the bridge she just came through.

She tried aiming for the heart and pumped three bullets into its heart. Still, no effect on the monster as it paces forward like a zombie. It was within feet of grabbing her. She wastes no time and kicks the monster back for elbow room. The mummy staggers back and almost falls off the bridge, but maintained balance. Cassie was about to push the mummy off the bridge, but her hesitation cost her that opportunity. "Stay back mummy; you don't understand!" The mummy lunged with a howl. Cassie dodged the arms and maneuvered around it.

The mummy growled in anger and turned around. It raised its hands again and lunged for the young woman.

She kicked the mummy with no effect in the crotch area. "Stop it!" she barked at the mummy. "Whatever is keeping you alive, I'm going to rip it out of you."

Cassie was originally not a believer in the supernatural. But now she was a true believer in the supernatural. She has experienced the supernatural before, like on Easter Island, and Iceland. She knew whatever was keeping this deceased warrior alive was supernatural in nature. _El Dorado was supernatural, so was Shambahala, along with Agartha, the Fourth Labyrinth, and Atlantis of the Sands._

She was figuring out on how to get out of here whilst alone. Nothing seemed to faze the monster, but that didn't faze Cassie in her quick thinking process.

She analyzed and interpret her situation. The mummy appeared to be reaching out to her under the assumption that she is a threat. If she could get around the mummy, trick him into grabbing and pulling the right lever while she pulls the lever, she could get the door open and run out. As for the mummy, she would kick back until the door closed.

 _That's what I'll do._

"Hey buddy, hey mummy? Do you want to eat me? Well, guess what? I'm on the house," she speaks mockingly towards the mummy. She waves her hands frantically over her head, drawing its attention. She shifts towards the lever and presses her back to the wall. "Grab me and eat me." With her hands behind her back, she works on releasing the hook from the lever and throwing it to the ground.

The mummy groans in frustration and lunges both hands at the adventurer. She ducks and dips toward the other lever. The mummy realizes that his hands grab the lever instead of the girl and yanks his hands back, only for the lever to pull down in the process. Cassie timed it with perfection and yanked the lever down at the same time. The door slowly opened, revealing another set of lights on the other side. Cassie smiles victoriously, but that smile fades away once she realized that both levers must be held down all the way until the door opens up completely. The mummy freed its grip from the lever and the door was closed with only a few feet to run through before the door closed completely.

"Oh, crap." She dives through the closing doors, grabbing the end of her grappling hook and yanks it aggressively back before it could get caught. The mummy yells and thrusts its arm through the closing door, successfully grabbing the collar of Cassie's white henley. She puts her hands on the closing door and pushes back as if she was doing a push-up standing up. The shirt rips in the mummy's hand and the doors close in on its hand, severing it from its shoulder. Cassie groaned in disgust and backed away from the twitching arm, on the verge of throwing up. "Oh, god."

Her eyes did not stay on the cut off arm because of her henley shirt being ripped around the chest area. The area between her breasts was exposed through a tiny hole in the center of her chest area on her shirt. "That's going to give Derek a hard-on." She uses the rope of her grappling hook to wrap around her chest area from her shoulder to below her armpit. Now it looked like a gun belt on her chest kinda.

The sound of a punch shook her head to the other side. That's when she saw Derek fighting a small number of Overlord soldiers in unarmed combat. He defeated several of them and was fighting the girl soldier named Lachina. He was getting his ass whooped by her. Cassie runs to assist, knocking Lachina to the ground and helping Derek on his feet. "Are you alright man?"

"I'm doing good," he answeres quickly, embarrassed that a girl was beating him. "What happened to you and where's Omaria and the other?"

"What happened to _you_ guys and where's Niko?"

He points over her shoulder. "There he is." She turns back to Derek. She was about to say something until Lachina pushed her out the way and to the ground, hard enough to dislocate her shoulder. She groans in pain and gets back on her feet and slams her shoulder into a nearby wall to relocate it. Derek was once again taking a beating from Lachina and she went to help.

However, more Overlord soldiers with guns were running from the hallway that Cassie presumed that Derek and Niko came through. Cassie took out her pistol and shot at the Overlord soldiers. One by one, they went down like dominos but every time one would go down, another would quickly replace it. She killed about eleven soldiers. She barely had one magazine clip left and decided to use it wisely. She had to make sure that every shot counted and killed fourteen more soldiers.

When she was down to only one bullet, she aimed it for Lachina, who was still fighting Derek despite the obvious gunshot sounds. She was about to fire until three soldiers charged at her. Cassie was about to shoot one until she decided at the very last second that she would fight them in hand-to-hand combat.

She holstered her gun and kicked the first soldier in the gut and shoved him into the other two soldiers. The three went down and Cassie pile drove onto them, knocking one unconscious.

The two soldiers regain their stance and Cassie hops to her feet. The first soldier throws a roundhouse kick to Cassie, who subsequently dodges it, and is thrown off balance. Cassie kicks him in the gut before doing a spinning roundhouse kick to his face. The second soldier pitched numerous and he ended up getting punched hard in the belly. Cassie grabbed him by the hair, forced him to bend over forward, and kneed him hard in the face with enough force to knock him out.

The first soldier grabbed Cassie by the waist and suplexes her. Cassie hits her back hard and groans. "That really hurt." Her back felt as if a bag of bricks stapled themselves to her back and she has had a crooked back for years. Before her high pain tolerance kicked in, the soldier that suplexed her got on top of her and put his hands around her throat.

"Now you're going to die, Cassie Drake," the soldier says mockingly. "Any famous last words, Drake?"

Cassie jammed two fingers into the Overlord soldier's throat, pushing against his windpipe. The soldier let out a chocking gag out, spitting saliva on her face. The pain in his windpipe only made him squeeze harder against her lungs. Cassie's face started turning red from a lack of oxygen. Her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her skull. Her veins were protruding from her forehead. She jams harder into his throat, feeling a sudden crack in the soldier's windpipe and the soldier's eyes widen and face freezes in terror.

The soldier fell over, entire body frozen completely. Cassie coughs and gags to get her air back in. She laid on her side and slowly took in breaths. The soldier laid there on their back, not moving or breathing at all, his windpipe crushed. Cassie slowly turned on her other side to get a better look at the soldier that literally took her breath away. "Well, I can say that you are no Airbender." She elevates to her knees, arches her back, and sighs like she's never had any breath.

She looks over to see Derek snapping Lachina's bone and then turning to Niko. The poor kid was crying in pain. Cassie runs over to Niko and helps him sit up.

"Niko, man? Are you okay?" She sets him up against her knee so he had something to lean on. "What happened?"

Niko waited for the pain in his arm to wear off before he answered his friend and cousin. "That bitch Lachina snapped my arm."

It pained Derek to see Niko in such a critical condition. "I took care of her for you. I was not going to let anything happen to you. I'm sorry I let you down.

"At least you avenged me," he groaned. With his good hand, he shook his cousin's hand. "Go on, I'll stay here."

Derek shook his head. "No Niko, your arm is broken and I won't leave you here."

"If you don't leave me here, you won't get to Cleopatra in time and save the world. Go on!"

Derek looked at Cassie for approval. She hesitantly shook her head and laid him against the ground. "We'll come back for you."

"When the coast is clear, I'm going to make a run for our getaway car. Derek speculated that all Overlord soldiers are inside the Tomb, so the coast could be clear outside."

"What?"

"Go!"

Cassie was reluctant to back away from Niko as Derek hugged his cousin goodbye. Derek promised his cousin that he would survive and Niko kissed Derek's head for good luck. Now it was up to Cassie and Derek once again to finish the adventure. Wherever Omaria and Ahmed were, they would find later after they destroy Overlord.


	25. Cost An Arm And A Leg

Derek covered Cassie's back with the MG-225 turret. He fired at the soldiers coming in from the hole in the wall, killing about half a dozen; only because the soldiers were smart enough to stick to cover and not run into the line of fire. Outside the Tomb, Zaman, Hamed, Harkov, Lachina, and Khaled all laid down behind a truck, devising a plan on how to get back at Derek and Niko.

"They are killing us with our own turret," Hamed stated the obvious. "We only got like maybe thirty or forty soldiers left; I say we use our grenade launchers on the turret."

Harkov liked that plan and patted his friend on the back. "I love that idea. Let's blow them to bits."

Zaman chuckled at their sadism to kill both of the Lowells but had something better in mind. "Before we arrived here, I made sure that the soldiers put a Stopped on the turret." All four soldiers looked at Zaman with confusion, allowing Zaman to explain himself without stating the obvious. "A Stopper is a device implanted within a heavy machine gun like a turret that when activated, jams the chamber in the guns, therefore, stopping the gun from firing. I have a Stopper button right here on my phone." He shows the four his phone and types in a password to open his phone. He scrolls through several apps and clicks on the Stopper app. He types in the MG-225's serial number and presses the activate button.

The MG-225 turret jammed on Derek mid-fire, pissing him off and cursing out loud. "Damn it, the gun jammed!" Niko suggested unjamming it. Derek desperately tried this in time before the Overlord soldiers started moving in on them. "Crap, it's not unjamming! They must've implanted a Stopper on the gun." He could take the Stopper out, but too much time would already be wasted and the Overlord soldiers were moving in on them. "I say we leave this gun and start running."

"Agreed," spoke Niko.

Derek and Niko abandon the turret jeep and make a run down the opposite hall that Cassie and the other two went down. The Overlord soldiers quickly flooded the hole with reinforcements. Derek and Niko ran like the wind, but the Overlord soldiers were catching up, despite carrying a heavy kit like backpacks and firearms like assault rifles.

Derek shot his pistol at them to buy themselves some time to get more ahead of them. He was wishing that Cassie was here because he was missing her a lot.

They had a good fifty feet head start of the Overlord soldiers chasing after them and when they cut to the right at the end of the hall and kept their lights turned off in hopes that Overlord would lose sight of them. The loud noise of large objects clinging hard together in the distance almost shook the two off their feet.

A door opening at the very end of the hallway gave both the Lowells hope that they would escape. They doubled the pace and dived through the door upon reaching.

The door was closing as fast as a snail, ultimately taking away the hope that the Lowells had that they would escape from Overlord in time. Lachina leads a team with about two dozen Overlord soldiers managing to squeeze through in time before the doors closed. Zaman and the others were left behind and forced to find another way around. Derek yanks Niko to his feet and they continue to run down the halls with only half of the two dozen soldiers following. Soldiers aimed their guns to shoot the two, but Lachina refused. "Let's kill them with our bare hands."

Derek heard what Lachina said even from a distance away and turned to look over his shoulder. Lachina and ger group were already catching up to them. Lachina dives forward and tackles Derek just as he enters a room filled with overhead lit lanterns. Derek landed on his side and gagging as Lachina started choking him. Niko was attacked by four other soldiers. The soldiers that weren't combating were standing guard.

Derek places his foot underneath Lachina's belly and flips her over him. He kips up, still gagging for air, and nearly loses his balance until seeing soldiers attacking his cousin motivated him to ignore the pain and attacked the four soldiers.

Derek shouted to Niko, "Let's make this quick. Every Overlord soldier from outside is probably inside the Tomb!"

He whacked the first soldier in the temple and knocked him to the ground. Niko struck his distracted attacker in the throat and lunged at his waist. The third soldier went to help the one being beaten up by Niko while the fourth one went up to Derek. Derek kicked the fourth soldier in the stomach and wrapped both hands around the soldier's throat. Instead of choking him, he simply just punched him six times in the face and tossed him to the side. The first soldier got back on his feet and jumped onto Derek's back. Relying on instinct, he jumps into the air leans back as he falls, hammering the soldier into the ground.

Niko halted the third soldier's kick and propel his kicking foot to the side. Niko hits him in the kneecap before bitting him in the calf. The third soldier yells in pain and trips over the soldier that Niko was laying on. He hit his head hard against the floor and was knocked out instantly. The soldier underneath Niko was still attempting to push Niko off, but he refused.

Niko punched the soldier underneath him several more times until he felt his knuckles beginning to bleed themselves. He jumps to his feet and smashes his foot into the soldier's face, knocking him out instantly. He looks over to his cousin and goes to assist him.

Derek was not trained in any formal martial arts like Cassie was, so he was more street fighter. He relied more on his wits and athletic gymnastic skills to punch and dodge his opponents. The soldier was trained in unarmed combat, so he knew what he was doing. Derek had to be careful. The soldier's punches were aimed mainly for his head, which was predictable at shit. Derek just ducked and wadded out of the way like a penguin. He strikes the soldier in the jaw and knees him in the stomach. He grabs the soldier by the hair as he catches his opponent's punching arm, and slams him into the nearby wall hard. The soldier groaned in pain as he felt his hair being tugged on, on the verge of being ripped off like a wig.

He swings his free hand at Derek, only to have it blocked. The young adventurer forces the soldier to bend forward by kneeing him in the gut before shoving him down flat on his back and punching him across the face.

Derek turned his head over his shoulder and was whacked in the face by Lachina. He falls over on his side, but he kicks her in the kneecap and gets back up. Lachina gets up faster and grabs Derek by the throat. She puts a leg behind his leg and uses it to trip him to the ground with her on top of him. He was about to lose his breath.

Cassie slid through the door and runs to assist Derek in taking down Lachina. She knocks Lachina to the ground by ramming her shoulder into her shoulder. Once Lachina hit the ground with a loud thud, she looked over to the wheezing Derek and helped him to his feet. "Are you alright man?"

"I'm doing good," he answered quickly, embarrassed that a girl was beating him. Being observant, he notices that Omaria and Ahmed were absent in Cassie's presence. "What happened to you and where's Omaria and the other?"

Cassie shook her head, knowing that Omaria and Ahmed were in no harm and did not require help for the time being. "What happened to _you_ guys and where's Niko?"

He saw the grappling hook around her chest.

He points over her shoulder to show Cassie that Niko took care of himself around two Overlord soldiers. "There he is." He was proud of his cousin. Cassie was about to say something to him until Lachina kips up to her feet and shoved Cassie with an intense force out the way and to the ground, hard enough to dislocate her shoulder.

Lachina unholstered a knife from her chest holster and swung it at Derek. The young man had to use his keen senses to help himself predict and dodge the blade attacks. He had to back away from Lachina just to make sure that she wouldn't get too close to him and slash him.

"I got you cuz," Niko shouted as he sprinted towards Lachina. She backhands him with the knife in her hand and throws him to the side.

Lachina heard gunshots and saw several of her men go down. She was then sensing Cassie aiming at her, but she ignored it and continued to attack Derek, intending on using him as a meat shield if she had to. She didn't have to because of the several soldiers that went to go deal with Cassie themselves.

Lachina punched Derek hard across the face, enough to make him turn and expose his back to her, and she slashed him twice. The blade sliced through his shirt like butter and two bloody lines that crossed each other to make an X shaped scar. The scars ran from his shoulder bone to his hips. He yells in pain when Lachina kicked him in the center of the scar on his back and he falls on his stomach, his face turning red from pain.

"If it makes you feel any better, Derek, I think that scar on your back looks beautiful." She stabs him in the shoulder with her blade without even hesitating. Derek yells in pain and does the last thing he ever expected: He backhanded her.

He tried to backhand her, actually.

Niko saw the anguish that Lachina was putting his cousin through and he was filled with rage. He though Derek could take Lachina, but he was horribly wrong. He charges at Lachina from the side, tackling her in the waist and to the ground before Derek could even backhand her. Lachina was caught completely off guard by this and fell to the ground. Niko laid down on top of her, raised his hand to punch her. She caught the punch bit him in the forearm, enough to draw blood. Niko sneers through his teeth and is shoved off. Lachina kips up and kicks Niko numerous times in the stomach. She sweeps him off of his feet, leaving him open to her next attack. She raised her foot all the way up to her eye level, being flexible enough to do so, and brought her foot down hard on his stomach.

Niko groans in pain and folds over to the side. Lachina was not done with him, however. She grabs him by the hair, yanks him to his feet and knees him in the crotch area; the one place men dread to be hit.

"You want me to cut you like I cut your cousin?" she asked the cousin but did not give him a chance to reply. She grabs his arm, yanks it out as far as it could stretch, and forces Niko on his stomach. Remembering how Cassie broke Salaam's arm in the Pyramid back in Egypt, she decides to do the same thing on Niko.

She puts her boot on Niko's elbow and hammers it into the ground. Niko yells in pain as the feeling of his bone being snapped sets in. His screams echoed off the walls and awoken the still wounded Derek from the ground.

Derek looks over to see his cousin's arm being snapped. Anger sets into him instantly. "You don't touch my cousin, EVER!" He jumps to his feet and yanks the blade out of his shoulder. Lachina smiles at the fact that Derek was using blind rage to fight, so she could use that to her advantage. She kicks Niko aside and throws a kick to Derek. He catches her kick and traps her leg under his armpit. He stabs the blade deep into her kneecap, forcing a scream out of Lachina. For the final touch, he brings his leg over her trapped leg, kicking her in the face in the process, and brings down all his weight on her trapped leg. Lachina's leg snaps louder than Niko's and her screams almost made Derek go deaf. After breaking her leg, he gets off of her and shoves her broken leg to the ground and leaves her lying all by herself, clutching her broken leg in pain.

"Niko, man? Are you okay?" Cassie meets up with Niko and sets him up against her knee so he had something to lean on. "What happened?"

Niko waited for the pain in his arm to wear off before he answered his friend and cousin. "That bitch Lachina snapped my arm."

It pained Derek to see Niko in such a critical condition. "I took care of her for you. I was not going to let anything happen to you. I'm sorry I let you down.

"At least you avenged me," he groaned. With his good hand, he shook his cousin's hand. "Go on, I'll stay here."

Derek shook his head. "No Niko, your arm is broken and I won't leave you here."

"If you don't leave me here, you won't get to Cleopatra in time and save the world. Go on!"

Derek looked at Cassie for approval. She hesitantly shook her head and laid him against the ground. "We'll come back for you."

"When the coast is clear, I'm going to make a run for our getaway car. Derek speculated that all Overlord soldiers are inside the Tomb, so the coast could be clear outside."

"What?"

"Go!"

Cassie was reluctant to back away from Niko as Derek hugged his cousin goodbye. Derek promised his cousin that he would survive and Niko kissed Derek's head for good luck. Now it was up to Cassie and Derek once again to finish the adventure. Wherever Omaria and Ahmed were, they would find later after they destroy Overlord.

"Let's go, Cass," Derek spoke softly.


	26. Trauma

Cassie leads Derek through the hallways filled with lanterns. When he started wincing in pain from the knife that was still lodged deep into his shoulder, Cassie let him walk forward so she could get a look at his knife wound as they walked. She was very careful not to step on his shoes as they proceeded forward. Cassie put her hand on the hilt of the blade and pulled it slightly, making Derek gasp in pain. Cassie instantly felt bad for hurting her friend. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you."

Derek's face was about to crack with his wide wincing face. He looked over his good shoulder to get a look at Cassie, hoping to see her beautiful face would help him ignore the pain. "It's okay, really. I can't feel my shoulder anymore."

Cassie looks at Derek through her eyelashes after narrowing her eye. "If you can't feel your shoulder anymore, then why were you just wincing in pain?"

Derek raised his good shoulder up as a half-shrug. "I guess my tolerance suddenly grew over." He mentally slapped himself for using that excuse. "I mean, maybe I'm getting used to the pain." That was the exact same thing; where is his innovation? "I mean…"

"It's okay," Cassie interrupted. "All I need to know is if you are feeling any pain. I'm going to pull the knife out as soon as we find somewhere to sit down." Her fingers traveled away from the hilt of the soldier and down his back. She used her index and middle finger to his X scar.

The X scar was permanent on his back and suddenly Derek was feeling self-conscious about his scar. When he felt Cassie looking at his scar, he believes that she winces at him and will continue to wince at the sight of his back every time she gazes upon it. If they were to ever make love in the future, she would probably want him to keep his shirt on and would not put her hands on his back. He felt like an ugly monster with the X scar. Cassie was never going to be attracted to him physically.

Cassie knew that Derek was physically insecure. If anybody knew anything about physical insecurity, it was her. Cassie thought that Derek's scars were beautiful. To her, the X scar was the sexiest thing she has ever laid eyes on. She had a couple battle scars of her own, but they were nothing compared to Derek's beautiful scar. She could tell by the way that he was looking away from her and that he was indeed feeling self-conscious and unattractive. He always made her feel sexy and attractive, so it was time for Cassie to return the favor.

She did something else though. She took out her own piton and carved an X shaped scar onto the back of her left hand. She stretched out her arm to show Derek her permanent X scar. He gasps in shock with wide eyes and stares intently at her. "What?"

"Don't think that scar changes the way I look at you."

This warmed Derek's heart up a lot, giving him most of his confidence back. All the pain in his shoulder disappeared….until….

Derek yelled in pain as she yanked the knife out of his shoulder as quickly as possible. The knife was covered to the hilt in his blood, which was O+ blood, same as her own blood type, which was O-. She tucked the bloody knife into a spare holster around Derek's hip. She unwrapped his grappling hook and wrapped it in in an X shape to cover his scar up. She would use her own grappling hook that was currently wrapped around her chest, but she was not ready to give Derek an erection by showing him the space between her breasts. The time was not right.

Derek's bleeding shoulder was healing much on his own and apparently somehow, removing the knife from his shoulder stopped the bleeding, but rendered his right arm numb. Her scared hand was not bleeding so much and was healing on its own.

The hallway they walked in seemed to stretch forever. The lanterns lit up a lot of the hallway, but they had to pull out their angle head flashlights when they came up to a point in the hallway where there were no more lanterns.

"Man," Cassie began to complain. "These hallways go on forever. At least the one in Tefnut wasn't as complicated."

Derek smiled and looked at Cassie before saying, "Well we are in the house of a lost ruler. Two lost rulers with one betrayed by their lover. How did that guy writing the messages and leading Cleopatra's army out to look for a safe zone not realize that Antony was Cleopatra's husband?"

"That's irrelevant."

The angle head flashlights suddenly started running out of power. Both adventurers started shaking their flashlights, hoping by some miracle they would turn back on, but their shakes were in vain. Cassie's flashlight beam flickered on and off for a few seconds with the beam aiming at the ceiling. Cassie looked up at the ceiling and jumped in fear and fell down on her back. The symbol that she gazed upon sent fear into her instantly.

A symbol of a demon.

This seems irrational to fear, but Cassie has had a devilish encounter with a demonic being and she never felt more scared sleeping all by herself for a whole year.

Cassie doesn't fear clowns as her father does, or being in enclosed areas (she fears being _trapped_ in elevators), but what she truly fears are demons. Like Derek suffering from a severe case of Chiroptophobia (Fear of Bats), Cassie suffers from a severe case of Demonophobia, which was the fear of demons.

When she was fourteen, it was her first staying home all by herself and she was just watching TV and skyping with Derek, talking about the Oracle of Pythia. She heard a number of eerie noises and saw strange things. She knew that it was all real because Derek was seeing the same thing on his Skype screen. She was then possessed by some kind of being that made Cassie speak out loud, saying that she would kill herself in front of her parents. Derek called the police after witnessing this on his Skype screen and Christian priests actually came to 'sanitize' the place clean of demons and succeed. After the whole ordeal, Cassie was very traumatized from the very traumatic event and dreaded demons. She was not a believer in God back then, but now she believes that God is as real as a human being.

Her pet Vicky slept with her as a roommate, a whole year passing before Cassie became comfortable of sleeping by herself, but her fear of demons never went away.

 _I can never get over that fear._

* * *

The floor was descending to a forty-five-degree slope. Cassie sat down on her rear end and rode the sloping floor like a slide. The only difference between the floor and a slide: A slide won't give you first-degree burns. She jumped to her feet and wiped the dust off the seat of her pants. She decides to crawl down slowly instead of sliding. Derek stayed up on the surface until Cassie reached the bottom. He then crawled down.

The descending floor was leading deep into the ground, leading to a passage. Cassie smacked her flashlight hard and it lit up. The beam reveals that there is a big stream of water that seems to lead forever. The thing about the water was that it was fresh water and drinkable. She wasn't drinking any drinkable water if she was in a lost city unless she had to. After what happened to her father in Iram of the Pillars, no chances were to be taken.

"Come on Derek," she urged. "The water is clean, so our wounds won't get infected."

"Haven't you ever stopped to wonder why these waters are clean?"

Cassie shook her head. "I've been in this water for fourteen seconds exactly, I know as much as you do." She puts her left sneaker foot in the water, cringing and shivering from the cold. She retracted her foot and winces as if she was shot. "Man, that water is cold."

Derek kicked her forward. She fell down but managed to land on her feet like a cat, like a cat in water. She was up to her waist in cold water and the hairs on her arm spiked up. She glared at Derek. "Thanks a lot, D-Man. It is cold."

"Would you like me to jump in there with you?" He asked, but never got to answer.

Cassie grabbed him by the legs and forced him feet-first into the water. He stopped himself from falling, but only when his entire body up to his neck was submerged in the cold water. He now glared at her as if he was the victim in this crime. Instead of complaining, he simply said, "I guess I deserved that."

Cassie forgave him and moved forward through the cold water. Her head wasn't even hitting the ceiling because of her height, but as for Derek being six-one, the scalp of his head barely tapping against the ceiling so he had to somewhat tuck his head.

"I hope we don't drown in here," Cassie began. "I am still trying to beat Tom Cruise's record in holding my breath for six minutes."

Derek chuckled and moved ahead of her. The flashlight beam that Derek aimed out was getting larger and larger as he got closer. The flashlight beam ended at the wall, which seemed to be the only thing that was blocking their path. The two of them looked for a door to see if they could slip through, but the wall seemed to be the only thing standing in their way.

"Okay, it seems we have another puzzle to solve," Derek spoke the obvious. He hands his flashlight to Cassie and begins touching the wall in hopes of finding a lever. "Cleopatra has to set up a lever down here somewhere." He pressed his entire body to the wall like a starfish. "If I could find the lever or whatever- ha, they rhyme-then I could open a door and we could get out of this cold water." His skin was as cold as the fresh water.

"I'm going under to see if I can find something." With both flashlights in her hands, she takes one deep breath and puts her head under, jumping back out upon feeling the temperature drop in her face. "Oh my god, that water is cold." Her face is the last part of her body that touched the water, she allowed her body temp to adapt to the coldness before she plunged into the cold water.

She used her flashlights to help her see. At the very bottom, the wall behind Derek's sneakers had a keyhole at the very bottom. It was not a keyhole in which a typical 'open house door' key would fit through, but a circle shaped key of some kind. Without even surfacing, she placed the flashlight in her right hand on the ground and reached into her pocket. Feeling what she thought was still there, she yanked out a coin that was used to help with the navigational device. She swims closer to get a better look at the hole. The coin would be a perfect fit.

 _What are the odds?_

She lines the coin up with the keyhole, gently places the coin on the edge of the keyhole and with her thumb, presses it in. The coin inside the keyhole rotated all by itself counterclockwise. Cassie's watched as the coin rotated for thirty more seconds before the wall sank back a little. Air bubbles escaped from her mouth as the door opened to the right and a new wall in front of her. Cassie surfaces for air and there in front of her was an opening above the water. The floor rose just above the water, so they climbed up and back onto somewhat dry ground.

As Cassie climbs up, a hand from behind grabs the rope wrapped around her chest and back and yanks her back forcefully. She falls back into the water without taking a breath. She desperately swims back up to the surface, only for a hand to grasps her chest ropes again and shoves her under. This time, it was not Derek who was pushing her under to save her. This hand was pushing her under to drown her.


	27. Revelations

Derek sensed that something wasn't wrong, so he looked over his head and saw a mummy drowning Cassie. Ironically, it was the same mummy that Cassie mocked earlier. He yelps in fear upon seeing the mysterious monster and reels his foot back to kick it in the face. He kicks it three times in the face and it barely budges. The mummy responded to these attacks by slowly looking up from drowning Cassie and towards him with a glare. Fear sunk into Derek's chest like a rock. If there is one thing he has learned over the years, if you punch or kick someone in the face and they barely budge or don't budge, then you run. If you kick them in the groin and they show no effect at all, then you run like hell and never look back.

He tried to crawl away, hoping to draw the mummy away from drowning Cassie but the monster reached out and grabbed Derek as he squirmed like a worm. His hand latches onto the leg sleeves of his jeans and dragged him back. Derek winced in pain as he felt his calf crush within the mummy's hand. He was yanked far back and fell into the cold water. The mummy stomps onto Derek's chest and starts drowning him beside Cassie.

With breath still within her, she removes the piton from her holster and stabs it into the mummy's groin. She hoped for some kind of reaction because if there is one place that is every man's weakness, it's their groin areas. When the limbs drowning her barely moved, she thought that there was no reaction. She was slightly not surprised because she kicked the mummy in the chest earlier and still no reaction. She thought she was just going to lie on her stomach and drown, but the mummy's grip released from her and she saw the mummy's feet stagger back and grab itself by the groin.

Even though the water disrupted her view and hearing, she heard as clear as a megaphone the mummy howling in pain. _I was right, it was a male._

Without any weight holding her down, she jumped to the surface, Derek doing the exact same thing. Once they reached the surface, they gasped for air and crawled up the opening slowly and painfully. Derek laid on his side while Cassie looked over her shoulder. The mummy was still there and the apparent pain in his groin area disappeared. The mummy took the piton out of his groin area and threw it like a knife towards Cassie's head. She ducks and the piton lodges deep into the wall in front of her.

Cassie looked at the piton and thrust her arm out to retrieve her piton. "Let's get the hell out of here," She grabbed Derek and helped him crawl forward. "Let's go; mummy is chasing after us!"

The mummy crawled up the opening and chased after the duo. Cassie and Derek crawled like insects to get away from the mummy.

Once the duo got back on their feet and started running for reals, the mummy limped like a zombie after them. There were lanterns above their head, so they turned off their flashlights and Cassie made sure that her gun was clean of water and the grenade was still attached to her hip. She wanted to use the grenade on the mummy, but she was afraid that she would need the grenade later in the future. She still had only one bullet left so that one bullet could be vital to this adventure. The piton proved to be useful in only one place so far.

"We gotta get out of here!" Cassie reminded once more. Derek just shouted at her in fear that she already said that. The two looked over their shoulders and the mummy was already catching up to them. And if that was not bad enough, Cassie and Derek had to take a right at the end of the hallway and ran into four sarcophagi. They could have taken a left, but they had to choose the path with the four sarcophagi.

The two adventurers jump back in terror and the coffins individually open up and four bodies wrapped in linen cloth exposed themselves to the two. Their arms were crossed over their chests with their eyes closed. However, their exposed one eyes all open at the same time and they gaze upon the two adventurers. Derek screamed in fear and ran back, Cassie barely being able to turn back in time before one of them reached out.

Derek ran past the mummy general while Cassie nearly bumped into the mummy general when it caught up to them at the end of the hall. Cassie maneuvered out the way as she did earlier by running underneath its armpits.

Derek was ahead of Cassie by ten feet and giving as to how he was running at full speed, she was not going to catch up to her. The mummies all paced after them like slowly Michael Myers, but the mummies had a seemingly supernatural ability to catch up with them when they weren't looking, prompting Cassie to constantly look over her shoulder as she ran, using her hands in front of her to guide her.

The two of them finally reached a door at the end of the hallway. It was another locked door like the one they encountered underwater. There were more keyholes, three to be exact.

"We need more coins," Derek shouted at her. "Hand me those coins!"

"Here they are! I have about four coins in my pocket!" She took out three coins and handed two to Derek. He planted two coins into two keyholes while he waited for Cassie to put her coins in. "Put them in!"

"Look over to the mummies! They appear to vanish up closer every time we look away!" she reasoned.

"Are you serious?"

"Do you want to be eaten?"

Derek just sighed deeply and looked over at the five mummies. She implanted the coin in and the door opened with a loud thud. She grabbed Derek by the arm and yanked him through.

The mummies caught up to them and the mummy general grabbed Derek by the back of his shirt. Fortunately, his shirt ripped from the mummy general's hand in time, exposing his skin and leaving a square hole in the back of his shirt. Derek crashed into Cassie and they fall to the floor. The two of them snap their heads over to the mummy general and the four mummies. The two crawled as far back as they could. The mummies were about to lounge out at them, but the adventurers were retaliated.

The mummies were spontaneously set ablaze. Fire shot out from behind them and engulfed all of them in flames. The mummies did not scream, nor did they properly 'react' to the flame burning their skin. Cassie and Derek immediately felt the heat of the flames and ran back and away from the mummies but kept their eyes on the mummies to make sure they don't supernaturally disappear. The five mummies fall down to the floor, the mummy general falling to his knees, but they all continued to reach out as if they had a glimpse of humanity and asking Cassie and Derek to save them.

"What the hell?" Cassie spoke as the mummy general fell over, linen cloth burned completely and doesn't move a single muscle. Cassie looked from the door they just ran through and save Zaman, Hamed, Harkov, Khaled, and an unnamed Overlord soldier with a flamethrower in his hands. The five soldiers aimed their weapons at Cassie and Derek and they two raised their arms in surrender. "Please don't kill us."

"We should kill you," the sadistic Harkov spoke aloud. "We should chop both of your arms off, then both of your legs, and then pour acid down your throats."

"There will be time for that later, Harkov," Hamed spoke softly. "I want to examine these specimens first. I want to see what these corpses are that Rahmaan just burned."

Hamed crouched down to one knee and poked at the burning mummy general carefully. He walked around the corpse with Rahmaan aiming his M2 flamethrower at the dead creature. Zaman, Harkov, and Khaled continued to keep their guns raised at Cassie and Derek to make sure that they wouldn't go anywhere.

"What a wonderful specimen," Hamed muttered softly. "It seems like some kind of force is keeping them not from dying, but keeping their brains function. They are body dead, but not brain dead, which would explain why they lack the ability to speak regularly and how to run. What I am still trying to figure out is how they managed to teleport from one area to another when our backs were turned." Earlier, Zaman and his group encountered a couple mummies that kept on vanishing whenever they turned around.

"If I brought a sample of this undead being to my lab, I would be able to understand it more. What's keeping them alive is seemingly supernatural, but actually does have a scientific explanation: The virus that we seek not only targets specific ethnic groups, but it also targets certain areas of the brain and leaves other areas unaffected. I believe that the virus mutates the brain so it would comprehend and manipulate the infected individual's lifetime, giving them semi-immortality. If we could find a way to manipulate the RNA within the virus, then we should be able to create our own mindless strain of the virus that we could use to infect our political enemies that would follow a certain person's command. Namely, our Leader. It is possible the only way to actually kill them is with a gunshot to the head."

He realized his mistake too late. The mummy general jumped back to life and grabbed Hamed by the throat and started choking him. Rahmaan aimed the flamethrower at the mummy general and prepared to burn him, but Zaman halted him. "I want to see what a living mummy could do to an actual human being."

Hamed gagged as he felt the grip around his throat begin to tighten. The burning mummy general stood up to his feet and held Hamed high above his head. Hamed's throat was being squeezed so tightly he thought that his eyes would pop out of his skull and head fall off. The mummy general thrust its hand into Hamed's heart area and yanked out his heart from his chest, yet Hamed was still alive. The mummy general weighed the heart in its hand and growled once he felt the heavy weight of the man's heart. Cassie knew what was going on: The mummy was trying to determine if he was worthy of life or death. If their heart was as light as a feather, then they would go to a good afterlife. If their heart was heavy, then they would go to a bad afterlife place and it seemed that Hamed's heart was heavy. The mummy general crushed the heart in his hands and went back to killing Hamed.

Despite it all, even though that Hamed was Zaman's good friend and he was a loyal soldier to Overlord, Zaman did nothing and let the mummy general choke Hamed, even smiling in fascination at what came next.

Hamed's skin began sinking in his bones, caving it like a vacuum cleaner was sucking the life out of him. Veins protruded in his head and his eyes widened in horror as the last of his life was sucked away from him. The mummy literally sucked Hamed dry of life in less than sixty seconds and Hamed was nothing but a lifeless corpse dangling from the mummy general's hand. Seemingly disinterested, the mummy general groaned and threw the dead Hamed to the floor.

Zaman aimed his gun at the mummy general and shot it through the skull, killing it once and for all. He finished the other mummies off before looking at his deceased friend. He scratched his head with the grip of his pistol and began laughing hysterically. Rahmaan, Khaled, and even Harkov backed away from Zaman as they believed that he has finally reached the deep end and is now a full-on sociopath.

Cassie looked at Zaman with shock as he continued to laugh. "That was your friend and you showed disloyalty and let him die."

Gasping for air in between laughs, he has finally had enough of this charade. He had to remove the skin colored face paint on his face and show Cassie who he really way. He was not Farid Zaman actually.

Upon seeing Farid Zaman's real face without any makeup to hide any distinguishing features, she saw this his face had dozens of facial scars and a tattoo on his neck that read, 'Fight or Die' in Arabic. At the drop of a hat, she knew who this person was. "Faris Zaid? The Egyptian prime minister?"

Faris Zaid nodded slowly with a smile. "Didn't expect that, did ya? Not only am I the Egyptian prime minister, but I am also the last living descendant of Cleopatra herself and Assim, the man who wrote the text in the triangle itself. We are all descendants of somebody I guess. I know, Cassie Drake, that you are a descendant of Sir Francis Drake."

"How do you know that?"

"Our Leader told us everything...and also, I have a surprise for you." He whistles over his shoulder. "Come on out,"

The soldier who always had his face covered came into the room with a knife in hand. "Hello there Cass," they say in...Omaria's voice. "You figured anything out?" Cassie narrows her eyes before the soldier reaches for their mask and pulls it off to reveal the face of Kamille Al-Bashir, who was revealed to be alive and loyal to Overlord. Cassie was unable to say any words as she stares into Kamille's soulless eyes. She puts a white square handheld voice changer to her mouth and says, "Surprises, Cassie."

* * *

 **Hamed Najam: #584902 (December 24, 1998-April 22, 2036)**


	28. Ancestor's Deadly Hug

Cassie was outraged at her betrayal. Betrayal is one of the two things she could not tolerate under any possible circumstances with the other being touched inappropriately or non-consensual. "How could you do this? How could you do this to us? We are your friends, or at least I thought we were." Cassie clenched her fists tightly. "I am going to kill you if this thing is for real and you are not brainwashed. Oh, and Omaria, she better not be part of this Overlord freaking group and I just left Omaria with Ahmed."

"Nope," Kamille confirmed, continuing to hold the Ghostface-like voice changer to her voice to give the illusion of Omaria's voice. "All me baby and nothing made me join this group, except my own free will."

"Where is Omaria? Did you kill her you goddamn traitor?"

"I would if I could. We have Omaria and Ahmed in our custody, so there is no need to worry." She took the voice changer away from her mouth but put it back to speak again. "You got something you want to say to me?"

"Did you squeal on Overlord and tell them everything about us?"

Kamille actually looked offended. "No, I never told Overlord anything about your past. Overlord already knew who you two were prior to before I even joined up with them."

"But your motive for joining the Overlord-scum?"

"I'm trying to make a better world. I listened to Zaid over here and our Leader and they are both right. The world is going to kill itself, so I am going to join the side that's going to win. If I have to kill my former friends and my own cousin to save the world, then so be it. I'm not a sociopath."

"No," Cassie began. "You're a psychopath." She was about to charge to kill Kamille, but Derek grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her chest in a bear hug way. Once he made it clear to Cassie that he was not going to release her, she shouted, "Let me go! Let me kill her!"

"No!" Derek shouted. "No, if you kill her, then once a mummy grabs you, your heart is going to be heavy and the life will be sucked out of you." He did not want to lose Cassie to the mummies or to Rahmaan the flamethrower Overlord soldier. "I don't want your heart to weight like a rock and get sucked to death by a mummy. And I don't want you to get burned to death."

Cassie's struggling ceased and Derek gave her a second chance and let go of her. She made no attempt to go after Kamille or Zaid. "None of you guys will get away with this."

"Really," Zaid responded. "Look behind you and see what we will get away with."

Cassie turned her back around and saw a huge room filled with gold and two giant sarcophagi laid down on the ground horizontally. A huge lantern lit up the entire room and the light reflected off the gold.

"It appears that we have reached the end of the road and the rainbow," Zaid spoke in fascination. "I thought we were going to meet my dear old ancestor a few minutes ago when we entered the tomb, but Derek shooting at us with the turret must have shaved off three minutes of our schedule."

Cassie ignored the terrorists and moved towards the two coffins in the middle of the room. When no one was looking, Derek secretly grabbed hold of a few Egyptian gold coins and put them in his pocket, confident that he would escape in time. Rahmaan kept his eyes on Derek while the others moved towards the coffin.

"I've been feeling guilty Commander Zaid," Kamille spoke with the voice changer still to her mouth. "I think I should bring in a couple friends so they can share this glorious moment that is soon to be pivotal."

Zaid just waved her off, indicating that she was allowed to leave the room and come back with the gagged and hogtied Omaria and Ahmed. Kamille forced her cousin and the homeless man to sit on their knees and face the coffins they were about to steal from. "You guys looked vexed," the traitor pointed out. "I promise Omaria, me joining up with Overlord has nothing against you personally."

Omaria grunted and almost fell over, if not for Kamille catching her. Cassie looked over her shoulder to see her helpless friends and spoke to Zaid. "Listen, maybe we can cut a deal. Maybe if you guys let Omaria and Ahmed go, we will help you conquer the world."

Zaid smiled sadistically, the psychopathic side within him once again emerging. "You actually believe that?" He slowly turns to Kamille then back to Cassie. "You think that I am just going to forgive and forget everything that you have done to me and Overlord as a whole? I don't need you; since Cleopatra's blood runs through my veins, I should be able to control the mummies once I get ahold of the virus that lays dormant in my ancestor's coffin."

Cassie looked down at Cleopatra's coffin, eyes wide with anticipation. "There is a virus inside this coffin that creates mummies? That's the whole reason you are here?"

"Of course. What better way to defeat your political enemies when you can make dictators out of them that follow your every lead. The governments all around the world will bow down to Overlord and we will form one inconquerable super government that runs from here all across the world. We will make sure to give full credit to Cassie Drake and Derek Lowell once the world is kissing Overlord's feet."

 _All the more reason for me to stop you._ Cassie was about to reach for her gun until the next words that uttered from Zaid's mouth stopped her. "Kill Ahmed."

Kamille raises her gun to the back of Ahmed's head and prepares to finish him off, but Harkov beat Kamille to the chase and killed Ahmed himself. Omaria gasped in horror as Ahmed's blood sprayed into her face and his corpse fell forward.

Harkov gazed upon Kamille with a smile. "That kill would've been too easy, so that is why I suggest killing your cousin right there. Prove that you really do have loyalty to Overlord and Overlord alone." He even handed Kamille a knife. "Kill Omaria right now."

Zaid moved towards the two coffins and ran his fingers over. "Not yet Al-Bashir, I want all three to witness the victory that my ancestor is going to give me."

Khaled moved alongside Zaid and kept his gun trained on the two adventurers. Zaid gazed upon the painting on the coffin of Cleopatra. He could care less about Antony or Assim. He could no longer contain himself. He began shoving the lid of the coffin off and to the ground. Inside the coffin was a linen wrapped corpse with one eye exposed like the mummies.

Cassie leaned forward like she was standing over a rail to see if she could see Cleopatra's corpse. She cringed in disgust upon seeing those rotted eyes. "That is your ancestor? Reminds me of the time that my father found Sir Francis Drake's corpse." Derek said nothing but stared at the corpse.

Derek spoke, "Just repulsive….what does Antony look like?"

Zaid sighed deeply and stroked his ancestor's head lovingly. "Hey there, Cleopatra. It's me, your descendant. I know that you and Assim conceived a child that went on to conceive others, which lead to me. I am your descendant and Assim's descendant. I am sorry to find you like this, but there is something that I really need. I need the virus that lies dormant within you. I need to take this world back. There is this one being that founded a group called Overlord, for which I am a lieutenant. The world needs rulers like you so I am confident that once I get the virus to our Leader, then he will repeat history and become the new modern pharaoh not only of Egypt but the world. I just need a sample of your DNA with the virus that you infected the people who tried to betray you. I need a tooth, a finger, a hair, an eyeball, a tongue, anything with your DNA."

Cassie cocked her head as she studied Zaid hard. He actually thought that he was talking to an actual living being. _Psycho mama's boy,_ she secretly chuckled. She took a few steps back and her back connected to the wall, but her left foot sank slightly into the floor. She stopped before she could take another step and stared down at her sneakers. She stepped on some kind of emergency mechanism hidden in the dirt. She slightly gasped but kept her face as still as possible. Derek heard her and turned to face her. She nodded down and indicated the mechanism she was stepping on. His mouth opened slightly, but he said nothing. His eyeballs then traveled to the wall they were leaning on and he notices a large door on the ceiling above him. Leaking through the small cracks in the closed-off opening in the ceiling was water and it seemed that an increase then subsequent decrease of pressure off the emergency mechanism would open the door and flood the room.

Perfect.

They both nod slowly, a plan silently being transferred between them.

 _I have one bullet and one grenade,_ Cassie reminded herself. _I am going to use them on Zaid and Kamille._

Zaid reached into his ancestor's coffin with a gloved leather hand to pull out one of her eyeballs. His fingers twitched at the feeling of yanking an eyeball out, but he blocked that out of his brain, reminding himself that the fate of the world is in his hands.

Khaled took his eyes off the two adventurers to look at Zaid reaching for Cleopatra's eyeball.

Harkov watched with anticipation, Kamille watched with anxiety. Omaria watched with terror.

Cassie and Derek watched with confidence as more mummies responding to the mummy general's death silently limp into the room and towards the flamethrower thug. Rahmaan turned around and twelve mummies surrounded him. He shot off a burst of fire, but it was too late. The mummies got ahold of him and began sucking the life away from him. Harkov was loaded for bear and shot the mummies in the brains with Khaled assisting him.

Zaid was temporally distracted but kept a focus on retrieving the eyeball. Cassie and Derek were preparing their attacking considering that Rahmaan was dead, Kamille was still tending to Omaria, Harkov, and Khaled fighting off mummies, and Zaid reluctantly reaching for Cleopatra's eyeball.

"Hey Zaid," Cassie called out. "Say hello to Sir Francis Drake for us and Cleopatra." She takes her foot off of the mechanism and the two jump out the way as a thousand pounds worth of water pours into the room. Despite being hogtied, Omaria butted Kamille in the gut and they both went falling over. Cassie and Derek were swept by the water and went crashing against the wall.

Harkov and Khaled fell forward and into the mummies' grips. And as for Faris Zaid…

The water threw him back against the wall with Cleopatra's coffin and Antony's coffin being lifted into the air and slamming against him, pinning him against the wall as water begins to fill the room.

Cassie and Derek were in pain after having their shoulders hit the wall as if they were hammers, but shrugged off the pain and took deep breaths to swim under. They swam past Zaid and towards the entrance. The two of them saw Omaria underwater and drowning due to being hogtied. Cassie takes out her piton and swims towards her and cuts her free.

Up at the surface, the water was filling the room quickly and washing the mummies and corpses aside. Harkov and Khaled were left trapped at the bottom due to the heavy kit they were wearing. They quickly ditched the weapons and swam up. One of the mummies grabbed onto both Harkov and Khaled's feet and prevented them from swimming up, terrifying both soldiers to the point of air bubbles escaping from them.

Faris Zaid was trapped underneath his ancestor's coffin underwater. He panicked and screamed for help, inadvertently losing his breath in the process. The whole ordeal had become too painful for him to even manage and his face turned blue. The water filled his mouth and ears. His lungs felt like they were on fire and about to explode. He tried to keep his eyes opened as long as possible but the pain in his chest was increasing and increasing. The pain made him felt like he was going to explode entirely.

His struggling ceased. His whole body goes limp and his head tilted to the side, his eyes pointing in the direction of his ancestor's eye he was about to pull out. He gave out his last air bubble and stared into oblivion.

Cassie may have indirectly killed Zaid, but his ancestor was the main reason he drowned to death.

* * *

 **Farid Zaman or Faris Zaid: 584901 (May 19, 2000-April 22, 2036) Death by an ancestor, how ironic.**


	29. Cassie's Heart

Cassie gasped for air as her head surfaced. She still had her hand on Omaria's shoulder and was pulling her through the door. There was an army of mummies coming at them. She wanted to swim back, but the closing door was barely open and water was starting to flood the hallways. The doors were about to close in on her feet and she yanked them in time. Harkov, Kamille, and Khaled swam through the door and fell beside the three adventurers.

Cassie, Derek, and Omaria free of her hogties rolled away from Harkov, Kamille, and Khaled. Despite the door closing to prevent water from flooding the hallways, water was starting to slowly leak through the walls and ceilings around them and the water rising up to their knees, and if that wasn't so worse, two dozen mummies were advancing towards them.

The six of them used whatever resources they had available to shoot at the mummies and move forward. Cassie and Derek were killing mummies like zombies by stabbing them with their pitons while Omaria was using Derek's grappling hook. The three remaining Overlord soldiers had knives to kill the mummies. When the first wave of mummies was gone, another wave of two dozen mummies appeared at the end of the hallway.

Out of all the six people still standing, Khaled was the most terrified one out of all of them. He recognized that his superior officer was dead, they weren't going to get the virus, mummies were going to crush their hearts and suck them dry, and the tomb was filling up with water, already reaching just below their waists. He was not going to have it anymore, so he waddles forward through the water, maneuvering out of mummies' grips and desperately tries to run to escape the tomb.

"We gotta get out of here," Cassie shouted as she recognized that the water was rising too quickly.

"No shit," Derek replied. "Come on Omaria."

Cassie and the others ran forward, leaving an enraged Harkov and Kamille behind to deal with the mummies. Once the two Overlord soldiers finished off the mummies, Harkov lunged for Derek and pulled him underwater. Kamille lunged for Omaria and tackled her underwater.

Cassie stopped wadding and turned back. Both of her friends and enemies were underground, drowning the other. Cassie attempts to run back, but a hand grabs her by the hair and yanks her back painfully. She is forced to turn around face-to-face with one more mummy. Cassie throws a punch aiming for its face, but the mummy caught it. The mummy uses its free hand to choke Cassie and using the other hand to reach into her chest area.

She winces in pain as she feels the most vital organ in her body be ripped from her chest supernaturally. She gasps at the sight of her heart in the mummy's hand and tried to reach for it. The mummy held the heart far out of her reach and felt the weight in its hand. Fearful that the mummy was going to crush her heart, she starts panicking. Then she remembered that the Overlord soldiers were drowning her friend and _her_ Derek. What was worse? Letting your friends and your person drown to death or waiting for your heart to be crushed and the life sucked out of you in front of your eyes?

The mummy groaned as if trying to say something. It slowly raises its arm down and holds the heart in front of a wide-eye Cassie. The mummy tilts its head from side to side like a weight scale, groaning softly like a baby. Cassie listened to the thumping of her own heartbeat as she feared the worst until the mummy gently placed the heart back into her chest. The mummy's grip around her throat lessened and she was put down to the floor. The mummies all around her seemed to sense her weightless heart and moved around her.

Her heart was as light as a feather and she was spared but more importantly, she would be going to a good afterlife once she died. "I guess those stories about weighing one's heart were indeed true. I knew that this entire time." No longer was she worried about the mummies being a threat, so she took out her one pistol and dove underwater.

Derek was punching Harkov in the face underwater. Cassie swims towards them and aimed her gun and put it to Harkov's head. He didn't seem to notice as he was too preoccupied with trying to kill Derek. Cassie squeezed the trigger, but the bullet did not fire out for water interfering with the firing system.

Derek noticed Cassie and reached for her belt once she got closer. He snatches the grenade from her and punches Harkov in his throat, causing him to open his mouth in pain. He shoves the grenade in Harkov's mouth and uppercuts him with his index finger inserting itself through the pin and yanking off.

Harkov's eyes widened in terror upon the familiar _clink_ and desperately tried to get the grenade out his mouth. Derek already planned ahead and punched him so he would bite down on the spoon and release it. Derek uses both of his knees to kick Harkov back and shove Cassie and himself away from Harkov.

The last thing that was heard of Harkov was him screaming through the water as the grenade went BOOM with a loud splash and his head went in several places.

"Don't be thinking dirty thoughts," Derek smirked upon getting a gulp of air for the first time in thirty seconds. "Thanks for the grenade, Cass."

"No problem; it was not my intention, yet not my problem either." She said that wrong and she realized it. "I mean…."

As for Omaria and Kamille, Omaria managed to shove her cousin off of her and surface in time before she drowned.

"Guys, we have to get out of here," Omaria said. "Leave Kamille to the mummies."

As fate would have it, the mummies did indeed grab hold of Kamille. The same one that was choking Cassie was choking Kamille.

Cassie and the other two watched the mummy reach for Kamille's chest and pull her heart out. Cassie must've guessed that her heart must be heavy as a rock because as soon as the mummy grabbed her heart, his whole hand went down to his waist level. "Oh no," she whispered. "No, Kamille."

Even though Kamille was Cassie's enemy and betrayer, she could not bear to see her former friend die a slow and painful death like Hamed and Rahmaan. Using the last bullet in her pistol, she cocked the gun to exit out any waters within the gun and aimed the barrel for Kamille's head as her skin began caving in. She squeezes the trigger and kills Kamille on the spot with a well-aimed headshot, giving her a merciful death rather than let her die slowly and painfully. Her corpse sank underwater. Even that was not enough because if her heart was heavy, then that meant that she was going to a bad afterlife. "May God have mercy on your soul, Kamille."

"We have to go, now," Derek spoke. He ran forward and around the mummies. Cassie and Omaria followed. The mummies seemed to sense that the three adventurers were friendly with weightless hearts and did not need to be taken down. Cassie started racing forward, but the water rose to her chest level, making it very difficult to run quickly. The ceiling was only a few feet above them, so they could still swim out of there. They reached the part of the hallway where they made a right turn into the wall of mummies earlier and retraced their steps.

When they got to the narrow opening they crawled through earlier, all three of them knew they had to swim underwater and none of them hesitated. Cassie took a deep breath and plunged headfirst into the water. Derek and Omaria copied her and swam after her. They swam through the narrow opening and back through the steep floor the two slid down earlier.

They surfaced sooner than they expected and they realized that the water had not flooded this part of the hallway that Cassie and Derek fought the Overlord soldiers in. Derek sighed deeply with relief upon the realization that Niko did indeed manage to escape the tomb, and so did Lachina.

The water level in the hallway was currently up to their calves, so they had a good chance of running, but the door that Derek and Niko came through earlier was sealed off tight.

"Why do the doors always close behind us?" Cassie asked herself. "Let's try that door I came through."

The three of them ran back towards the door that Cassie used to escape the mummy general. Like on the opposite side of the door, there were two levers, so this time Cassie would not need to trick a mummy into pulling a lever. Cassie and Derek yanked the lever and waited for the door to open completely. The water flooded onto the bridge and the three of them ran through and the door closed behind them.

They had to repeat every single test and trial Cassie had to overcome all by herself, albeit reversed. Even when they made it to the end of the bridge, the door opened and the blocks that came down from the ceiling recede back into their original positions, allowing the three to run through the halls without the worry of being crushed or drowned as there were no floods. They were so close to making it out of the tomb before it floods completely. The hole the jeep made in the wall was being filled with water, making Cassie realizing that the tomb itself was sinking into the sand. Derek and Omaria climbed through the ascending hole that the jeep made, with Cassie going last. Cassie barely made it through in time before her waist got crushed from the sinking tomb entrance. Cassie crawls hysterically fast as she could to get away from the sinking tomb. Derek and Omaria were already on their feet and running through the sandstorm. Cassie caught up to them without looking over her shoulder.

* * *

Somewhere from afar, Khaled was dragging Lachina away from the sandstorm and to safety. Crawling on their hands and knees, the sandstorm slowly subsided to reveal what was becoming of the tomb: Sinking into the ground like a rock in water with actual water replacing its position, making a small pond. The two Overlord soldiers saw Cassie and the other two escaping from the Tomb in time before it sank into the earth, gone forever, but they did nothing to chase them down. Instead, they just laid there on their backs and gazed up towards the sky, tired and dehydrated, yet grateful to have survived.

"What are we going to do now?" Lachina asked Khaled. "Are we just supposed to go home?"

Khaled sat up and gazed towards her, his hand stroking her green hair. "Savor the fact that we are still alive and breathing. Our friends there died, but we survived and we get to see Tadeas again. We get to see _our_ son again." He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I am glad to be alive and I promise that I will not leave you again this time."

Lachina gently laced her fingers in between Khaled's fingers affectionately. "You promise?" she asked the father of her baby.

"I promise."

Khaled got up to both feet, keeping ahold of Lachina's hand and helped her to her feet, putting her arm over his shoulder and having her put weight on the leg that wasn't broken. They walked off to one of their vehicles and drove out of the desert.

* * *

Back with Cassie and her group.

The three of them ran out of the sandstorm, tiring from the sudden heat and individually feeling exhausted. Cassie fell to her knees and leaned forward, her hands in front of her and buried deep within the sizzling sand. Derek collapsed to his side while Omaria slowly squatted down to get on her back. Cassie took slow and deep breaths in and out and looked over her shoulder to see the tip of the tomb sinking into the sand, leaving no trace behind except a small pond of water. Once again, another lost city was destroyed and permanently became a myth.

"I guess it runs in the family," Cassie chuckled. "Man, why do every lost city we find ends up getting blown up, caved in, or drowned underwater? Then again, we did come here to destroy the tomb." She slowly looked away from the now-gone tomb to Derek. "Did you by any chance get any…"

Derek knew what she was going to finish asking and smiled smugly. He reached into his pocket and grabbed out six gold Egyptian coins. These coins were even more valuable than the ones that Cassie obtained from the museum and they were proof that this adventure would happen in case the press asked questions. "As long as I'm around, fortune and glory are ours."

Omaria sat up and looked at her two friends with a smile on her face. "I cannot believe what we just did. We saved the world and an ancient pharaoh."

"Yeah," Cassie said. "Kill the villains, save the world, typically superheroes of us."

Suddenly, Derek's heart started pumping and his eyes were wide with terror. He jumped to both feet and looked around, shouting, "Where's Niko?!"

Like answering a ringing phone, a car honked in the distance and droves towards the three. One of the Overlord jeeps left behind met the three and the driver revealed itself to be Niko himself.

"Someone need a hand?" he punned, considering that his hand was broken and he was driving one-handed.

"I love you cuz," Derek cheered as he ran to hug his cousin lovingly. "I'm driving," he whispered into his ear. Niko jumped into the passenger's seat carefully, allowing Derek to hop into the driver's.

"This is quite an adventure to tell," Cassie said happily to Omaria. "And about your cousin, I'm sorry. I shot her myself because I couldn't let her die slowly. If it makes you feel better, Kamille has said herself that her joining was nothing personal, but for the sake of the world. I hope you can forgive for joining a group who claims to be saving the world from killing itself."

Omaria ignored her and hopped into the back of the van, shutting her deceased cousin out of her head completely. Cassie climbed into her seat and took out her journal to write in it. She made a mental note on the last page to honor Kamille somehow. Cassie said nothing as Derek drove them back to civilization.

' _Some are born great, others achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' I'm one of those people. Greatness is thrust upon me._

* * *

 **Kamille Al-Bashir: #584914 (2016-2036) She was neither a sociopath nor psychopath but suffered from a severe case of schizophrenia. She has had consideration of joining Overlord for a long time, the voices just helped support her.**


	30. Epilogue

8 Months Later

December 25, 2036

Maui, Hawaii

Christmas morning in Maui, Hawaii, was the one thing Cassie loved. Unlike a traditional cold snowy white Christmas, Christmas on Hawaii was a unique, warm, and lush holiday. Cassie and Derek were released from the University of Hawaii in Maui to go home and celebrate Christmas with their families.

Niko was even invited back home to celebrate Christmas with his family. Although Cassie wanted Derek to spend time with her, she knew that he had a family to celebrate Christmas with. She woke up in her bed in warm soft pajamas and walked downstairs. Her mother and father, Nathan and Elena Drake fell asleep on the couch. Cassie wiped the sand out of her eyes and looked at the plate of Christmas cookies, milk (both for Santa), and carrots (for the reindeers).

Cassie moved towards the plate and picked up a half eaten M&M cookie. She smiles at seeing the bite marks and gazed into the half-full glass of milk. Eight and a half out of nine carrots have been eaten.

She looked under their natural and decorated Christmas tree to see a ton of presents under there. She smiles warmly as she sees one present addressed to her. Then she spotted a blue wrapped present that she made for Derek. Her eyes targeted the watch on her right wrist, noting that it was still five-thirty o'clock in the morning.

"I put Derek's present under the tree because I thought that he was celebrating Christmas with us." She was genuinely proud of the gift she got him but was sad that Derek was not there to receive it. "I can still deliver it; he should still be asleep." She quietly jogged over to the tree, not wanting to wake her parents. She crouches down, reaches under and grasps Derek's present.

His present had the shape of a box of chocolates shaped like a heart, which represented what Cassie was increasingly feeling whenever he was around her. She just had to get this gift to her friend before he woke up. She wanted it to be a surprise. The present that she got Derek was a heart-shaped box of chocolates indeed, each with a different strawberry flavor.

"His house is only two miles away, I can make it in time before Mom and Dad wake up." Cassie clutched the present gently against her chest, jumped to her feet and went to the counter to grab her keys. She walked as slowly as possible to the front door, being careful not to wake up their age-old dog, Vicky, whose cage was placed near the door.

Even when she heard the creaking of the door opening slowly, she felt like it was the loudest sound in the house. She heard the leather cracking on the couch from where her parents were sleeping and quickly dashed out, carefully closing and locking the door behind her.

 _Aw shoot, my shoes._ "Guess I'll have to run there barefooted."

She wasted no time and started running towards Derek's house while the sky was still pink from the sun rising.

The weather was somewhat cold, but Cassie wasn't complaining. She was never going to take warm heat for granted, ever. Her adventure in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, made her appreciate how warm her home was. Speaking of which, eight months ago, after Cassie finished her Lost Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra adventure, she traveled back to Egypt to have a funeral for Kamille, which Omaria even attended. They just buried possessions belonging to Kamille in a coffin. Niko went to the hospital to receive treatment for his broken arm, which healed seven weeks later. And as for Overlord, they were still out there, their supreme Leader still alive, but Cassie has never heard any news update on them. Her guard was still up, however.

 _We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,_ she hummed to herself. Even at the age of twenty-two, Cassie was still a believer in Santa Claus and had a movie to prove it. Actually, she wished for this one movie-Transformers-told no one about it, never wrote it on a list, whispered to herself every day when she was five in the corner, _Can you get this movie for me on Christmas, Santa?_ On Christmas day, she did indeed get the first movie and was now a true, and permeant believer in Santa Claus.

She ran about a quarter of a mile and was not yet out of breath. When she reached the halfway point, she was slowly starting to show signs of fatigue. She ignored the tiredness because she had to put Derek's present under her tree. She never handed Derek his present herself, preferring to hide her present under his the tree and that was her tradition.

After reaching his house, she climbed up the steps on the front porch, her feet feeling numb due to running barefooted for about ten minutes, and took out her key to open Derek's front door. _It is indeed nice to have a key to your friend's house._

She pushed the door open carefully and peaked through, all the lights in the house turned off and the multiple sounds of people snoring gave her reassurance that she was the only conscious person in the house.

She leaves the door open and slowly proceeds to the tree in the living, knowing that is where the Lowell traditionally put their naturally white colored Christmas tree. She froze dead in her tracks when she was Derek asleep near the Christmas tree.

 _Oh, that's Derek's Christmas tradition; how did I forget?_

Derek's Christmas tradition was falling asleep near the tree area so he would be the first to open presents when he woke. He had been doing this since he was twelve and apparently, still does even after ten years.

This made Cassie's goal a little more complex. She tiptoes over to the white tree, stepping over the snoring Derek and very slowly and silently puts the heart-shaped present underneath the tree in front of Derek's face. She pulled her hand back and looked down at Derek with a smile. She whispered to herself very quietly that only she could hear, "Merry Christmas."

After her mission was complete, Cassie snuck out the house, locking the door, and ran all the way back to her parents' house, taking her another ten minutes. By the time she got there, it was about five-fifty-five and the sunrise was greater than before. Once she got inside, she put her cold feet in her mother's soft fluffy slippers and walked back upstairs to go to bed. Before she went to sleep, she looked to her closet, feeling nostalgic all of a sudden. She moves towards the closet door to open it and pull out a chest labeled, 'My Adventures'.

She sits on her bed as she opens her chest and looks inside. Her blue journal labeled 'Cold iron' was the one journal that she used to help her find the Cold iron in Bosnia almost eighteen months ago. Several trinkets she collected along the way were inside as well, but she left them alone. And as for her Cleopatra adventure, she labeled the red journal she used as 'Antony/Cleopatra' and smiled upon retrieving it. "Man oh man oh man," she said to herself. "What a couple of stories I have to tell to my cousins as soon as Uncle Sam and Aunt Magna arrive."

About an hour later, her mother and father did wake up and open presents that they got for each other. After that, Nate invited his Uncle Sam and sister-in-law, Magna, whom he has been married for nine years, to come over to their house with their three children, who were around the ages of five, six, and seven.

Cassie sat down with her three cousins and told them stories about Easter Island, Iceland, Bermuda, Bosnia, and their most recent adventure, Saudi Arabia. Out of all the audience, she tells her stories too, she likes telling her stories to her three cousins.

"So after we find the Tomb of Cleopatra and Antony, we discovered that mummies really were indeed alive. These mummies don't eat people though, they suck the life out of you." She began on explaining how they determined which kind of afterlife a person would go to if they died back then. "So if your heart was heavy, then you would be going to a bad afterlife. If your heart is lighter than a feather or as light, then you would be going to a good afterlife. One of the mummies actually pulled my heart out and weighed it. My heart was light as a feather, so that means I was spared."

The first cousin aged seven rose his hand. "Can we come with you on your next adventure?"

"Only if it does not include being shot at, stalked, or other stuff, then you can. Is there anything else? Plus, you got to ask your parents for permission."

The first cousin once again raised his hand. "Why do you always ask your friend Derek to come with you on adventures? Do you like him?"

Cassie started blushing but hid it from them. "I do not like him."

"Then why do you spend a lot of time with him?"

 _Can't believe I'm being called out by a seven-year-old._ "Okay, I will admit. To some degree, I do like Derek. I think he is cute, and I like being around him, I admit defeat." Her cousin then asked if she loved Derek. "Do I love Derek? I…." she was stumped, unable to say anything.

She gripped her left hand an her index finger traced the superficial X that she gave herself for Derek. She hid the scar from her cousins, but she gently traced the scar, which will now be a permanent reminder of what she did for Derek just to make him feel beautiful and she still did not regret it. "I don't know if I can answer that correctly."

The End of Chapter 7

* * *

Credits

Cassie Drake

Derek Lowell

Niko Lowell

Omaria Al-Bashir

Ahmed

Faris "Farid Zaman" Zaid: #584901

Hamed Najam: #584902

Lachina Onassis: #584903

Harkov Mayakovsky: #584904

Khaled: #584905

Rahmaan: #584906

Achmed: #584907

Stalker: #584910

Observer: #584911

Salaam: #584912

Tirdad: #584913

Kamille Al-Bashir: #584914

Mad Hatter Soldier: #584915

Malik: #584916

Marid: #584917

Kareem: #584918

Baseplate

Security Officers

Cab driver

Bellhop

Nathan Drake

Elena Drake

Samuel Drake

Magna Drake

Cousin 1 (Andy)

Cousin 2 (Nancy)

Cousin 3 (Laurie)

 **Merry Christmas to you all. Thank you all for reading my story, it means a lot. Feel free to share reviews or criticisms, and don't forget to share this story with your friends and family. Thank you all and once again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.**


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